PXE boot still presented despite being turned OFF in BIOS?

[Mr Davo]

Hi All,

I have a Dell Dimension C521, and plugged into it I have a Realtek (generic) 1Gbps PCIe Ethernet Adapter Card.

My current challenge is that the computer tries to PXE boot off the add-on card despite the fact that I have turned this feature off in the system BIOS.

I have dabbled with the 'Intel Ethernet Flash Firmware Utility', http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/software/manageability-products/000005790.html, by issuing the appropriate BOOTENABLE=DISABLED command (which appears to have completed correctly). However unfortunately the PXE boot option (as shown below) is still shown each time I turn the computer on!

According to the Intel documentation it should be possible to click on CTRL + S during the boot process in order to enter the PXE utility, however this does not appear to be an option on my system.

I have recently upgraded the system with an SSD; as a result my C521 despite being quite old performs very well. However one of the primary reasons for installing the SSD was to speed up the boot time, which has only marginally occurred due to not being able to turn the PXE function off.

If anybody has any advice on how to further configure my PXE options it would be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Davo

 

[BFG-9000]

You may have turned off PXE boot for the integrated Broadcom 10/100 ethernet in the BIOS, but your Realtek card has its own BIOS on it (more properly called an option ROM) which is bootable.

CTRL + S only works on Intel adapters, which your card is not. If you can't find how to disable the PXE boot for the Realtek (or if there isn't a way), you can always desolder a leg or two from the ROM chip on the card to disable it. It's not needed to run the card in Windows, only for booting from the network.

After the experience of having to desolder a couple, I would only buy NICs with no ROM or a socketed one and though the cards are all long gone, I still have the box of 20 year old ROM chips now!

 

[Mr Davo]

Hi BFG-900,

Thanks for your response; you were right on the money. The correct key combination was Shift + F10, this allowed me to turn off the PXE option on the add-in cards option ROM!

Kind Regards,

Davo