serial console

[Greg MATTHEWS]

hello...

trying to set up serial access on my bw nodes. easy enough to get serial login 
and also a serial interface to bootloader however... if i add the 
console=ttyS0,9600n8r to my kernel parameters and nothing is connected to the 
serial port, then the kernel doesnt boot (actually it does but *really* 
slowly, about half an hour to reach multiuser!). i'm guessing this either a 
small config problem or something specific to my hardware. i am using tyan 200 
motherboards which seems to have standard serial ports...

Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ 
SER
IAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A

with a console attached to the serial port, it boots up normally. what can i 
do about this?

GREG

ps redhat 7.3 stock