[ipxe-devel] Realtek r8169 (10ec8168.rom) breaks download everytime at 47%

[Michael Brown]

On Tuesday 10 Jan 2012 23:52:24 Joshua C. wrote:
> > Are you entering iPXE when the "Press Ctrl-B to configure iPXE" message
> > is displayed (rather than waiting for the BIOS to attempt a boot via
> > iPXE)?  If so, then that might be your problem.  (At the "configure
> > iPXE" stage, the BIOS may not yet have created the full system memory
> > map, which can cause various strange issues.)
> 
> That's an interesting point. Actually I'm pressing Ctrl-B to enter
> into the ipxe. I've compiled the default git code and the system
> doesn't have any boot server set. That's the reason I manually point
> it to the http servers...
> 
> I dont't know how the code initialize the system memory but I think it
> should have enough time to do so. The drop out happens after apx 8-9
> mins after system start. This should be enough, shouldn't it?

Time isn't the issue.  The "Press Ctrl-B to configure iPXE prompt" is displayed 
during POST.  If the user presses Ctrl-B at this point, then POST is never 
completed and the system memory map may never be fully constructed.

(Note that this isn't the same as the "Press Ctrl-B for the iPXE command line" 
prompt, which is perfectly safe to use.)

Try using a non-ROM image first, such as ipxe.iso, to eliminate any possible 
problems due to early BIOS initialisation issues.

Michael