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

[Joshua C.]

2012/1/11 Michael Brown <mbrown at fensystems.co.uk>:
> 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

Is there a way to make the bios fully initilize the system memory map
and start the rom image only if a full memory map is present? I know
that intel uses a ctrl+i to start their matrix storage rom, so there
should be a way to wait till a full memory map is present, shouldn't
it?
Maybe something in the driver initilization process?

--joshua