Specifications

PC BIOS
10-4 PP 41x/03x
10.3 Boot Device Selection
The order in which the PC BIOS searches for a bootable medium is pre-configured but may be
altered by the operator using the Boot setup menu. When the order is changed using this menu it
will be retained in non-volatile memory so that the order is maintained after a restart. It is also
possible to specify a one-time override of the boot device when the board starts, by pressing the
<ESC> key. This will result in a pop-up menu appearing. The appropriate boot device may be
selected from a list by using the cursor keys and pressing <ENTER>, but this is not retained in non-
volatile memory, so the correct device must be re-selected if necessary at a subsequent restart.
NOTE: When the <ESC> key is pressed, a few seconds may elapse before the boot
device selection menu appears. The PC BIOS will always run BIOS Extensions for any
PMC modules it detects before responding to the key press.
The on-board Ethernet channels require their PXE Firmware to be enabled before they can be
used as boot devices. A BIOS setup option controls whether PXE Firmware runs for the front or
rear Ethernet channels, this can be found under Main | Boot Features | PCI
Configuration | PXE Boot Firmware.
The Ethernet boot firmware allows remote booting using the Pre-Boot Execution (PXE) protocols.
Further information on the capabilities of this software is available from the Intel web site at:
http://developer.intel.com
NOTE: The BIOS has limited space available for Extension ROMs. If a PMC module
containing extension firmware is fitted to the board, it may be necessary to disable one or
more of the on-board firmware extensions before the PMC firmware can be loaded.
The BIOS runs Extension ROM firmware for each PCI device matching a ROM's signature. This
means that if the BIOS detects two or more devices of the same type it will attempt to load and run
the same firmware more than once. Since the space available for Extension ROMs is limited, this
process can result in error messages being issued during POST (and the side effect of running the
full memory test each time the board boots).
To overcome this problem the BIOS includes a Setup option, Main | Boot Features | PCI
Configuration | Option ROM Loading, which controls the number of times each ROM
Extension is run. By default there is no restriction, however the user can elect to run SCSI
Extension ROMs once only, or run all Extension ROMs once only.