[syslinux] Version 3.35 problems with Broadcom BCM5780 chipset

[Ole Holm Nielsen]

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>> It really bugs me that two 100% identical servers (from a Linux xompute
>> cluster) consistently behave differently with the SYSLINUX menu system.
>> There seems to be an element of randomness in the second server regarding
>> whether the menus work or not.  I have no idea how this may come about.
> 
> Me neither.  This is truly freaky.  It sounds like it's completely 
> random, regardless of version.
> 
> Can you press <esc> to return to the command line?  If so, can you load 
> the images that fail from there?

I tried <esc> to leave the menus on one server where the menus items fail,
and I do get the boot: prompt.  Then I try to load the file in the TFTP
server's /tftpboot/memtest86 (verified to work with a PC):
   boot: memtest86
   Could not find kernel image: memtest86

However, the TFTP server doesn't log any TFTP traffic at this stage
(I've increased the TFTP daemon verbosity so I also see "File not found"
messages).  I also try to get back to the menus by pressing return:
   boot: <return>
   Could not find kernel image: menu.c32

That's really weird, isn't it ?  I can display the SYSLINUX version
at this stage:
   boot: <ctrl-V>
   PXELINUX 3.35 0x45bd5445  Copyright (C) 1994-2007 H. Peter Anvin

Finally, I verified that <ctrl-alt-del> actually works and resets the server
(it's not quite frozen at this point).

FYI: Hardware config is dual-Opteron 285, 8 GB of RAM, BCM5780 chipset.

-- 
Ole Holm Nielsen
Department of Physics, Technical University of Denmark