Cannot boot from USB devices on hardware with VIA chipset

[FreeBSD Mailing List]

On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 08:04:11AM +0100, Hans Petter Selasky wrote:
> On 12/16/13 01:29, FreeBSD Mailing List wrote:
> >Hi.
> >
> >I'm trying to install FreeBSD on a machine with a Jetway NF76 motherboard,
> >which is using the VIA Nano processor and VX800 chipset.
> >No matter which USB device type I try (memory stick, CDROM drive, hard drive
> >masquerading as CDROM drive), the boot process hangs before reaching the
> >installation screen, with what looks to me like a USB problem.
> > ...
> 
> Might be an IRQ hang problem. Did you try booting without ACPI and
> SAFE mode?

Booting without ACPI produces the message
  Root mount waiting for: usbus3
a number of times, interspersed with
  usbd_setup_device_desc: getting device descriptor at addr 2 failed, USB_ERR_TIMEOUT
and
  usbd_req_re_enumerate: addr=2, set address failed! (USB_ERR_TIMEOUT, ignored)
, before giving up and presenting me with the prompt to specify the boot
device manually. It doesn't show any available devices, though.

Enabling safe mode doesn't even get me as far as the original attempt.
The last lines shown are these:
    uhub3: <VIA EHCI root HUB, class 9/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus3
    uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
    uhub1: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
    uhub2: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
(no "Root mount waiting for: usbus3" message.)
It is the same result with and without ACPI.