Intel Boot Agent GE v0.4.09

[Mischa]

Hello,

I'm trying to build a personal supercomputer with four Gigabyte X570S, with embedded 'Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V' network card, motherboard based 16-core computers. To avoid installing and configuring as many operating systems as I have nodes, I want to use PXE (Intel Boot Agent GE v0.4.09 (X570S) and PXELINUX 6.04 (syslinux.org)).

But, once every so many attempts to boot, I get the following error message:

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable

PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent.

Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key

Because there is nothing physically wrong with the cable, a simple reboot suffices to get the system up and running, but I'm really bothered by this 'press a key'. PXELINUX takes care of such problems by rebooting automatically after a number of seconds, such that manual intervention (attaching a monitor, a keyboard, getting a chair etc.) is avoided. It would help if the Intel Boot Agent acted in a similar fashion.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Best regards,

Mischa Baars.

[Mischa]

Hello Crisselle,

I have asked Gigabyte for a NMV version belonging to the X570S Aero G motherboard with embedded I255-V Ethernet Controller and firmware version F4C , different from the version of the Intel Boot Agent in the subject line.

Let's wait for them

Best regards,

Mischa Baars.

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

Thank you for the prompt reply. 

We will patiently wait for your update once you heard from Gigabyte. Feel free to post on this thread in case there is any clarifications.

Hoping to hear from you soon. 

Should there be no reply, we will follow up after 3 business days. 

Best regards,

Crisselle C.

Intel® Customer Support

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

Good day and I hope this message finds you well!

This is just a follow up to check if you already heard any update from Gigabyte. If yes, please share their feedback. If not yet, kindly advise as well. 

Awaiting to your reply. 

We will follow up after 3 business days in case we don't hear from you. 

Best regards,

Crisselle C.

Intel® Customer Support

[Mischa]

Hello Crisselle,

I've received no answer from Gigabyte since their confirmation of my question on 2/12. In the confirmation they say that they will get back to me ASAP, but until today, nothing.

Perhaps it would be possible for you to contact them directly? I am but a customer and presumably one too many in Intel-Gigabyte B2B affairs.

Best regards,

Mischa Baars.

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

Thank you for your reply. 

Have you tried making a follow up with Gigabyte to check the progress of your request? If not yet, we would suggest to do, so we can check the current status. 

Looking forward to your reply.

In case we don't hear from you, we will follow up after 3 business days.

Best regards,

Crisselle C.

Intel® Customer Support

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

How are you doing?

This is just a follow up to check if you already tried making a follow up with Gigabyte to check the progress of your request? If not yet, we would suggest to do, so we can check the current status. 

Awaiting to your reply. 

We will follow up after 3 business days in case we don't hear from you. 

Feel free to let us know if you have questions or clarifications. 

Best regards,

Crisselle C

Intel® Customer Support

[Mischa]

Hello Crisselle,

I had to look for you. You're on page two

Yes, I've contacted Gigabyte with a follow up. In the meantime they have responded to the first message and I suppose they're now reading our entire conversation, because I posted a link to it in the follow up.

We're again waiting for their response, because they did not understand what NVM was. Apparently it is another name for flash memory, as I understand it.

By the way? I didn't know there's flash memory in keyboards, I always thought that was ROM, but it isn't. Now the first thing that happened to me with this new computer is that someone rewrote the flash memory of one of my keyboards, so that I couldn't switch terminals any longer. Do you know how they could have entered my system? I sometimes notice such activity when the computer is not even connected to the internet by any means. Do they do that by satellite or by 5G? And what kind of technologies does Intel build into their chips to facilitate this?

Best regards,

Mischa Baars.

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

Thank you for the swift response. 

To give you enough time waiting for Gigabyte's response, we will be making another follow up after a week. 

Regarding your follow up question, we would suggest raising this as well to your manufacturer as when it comes to chipset, BIOS and overall security, they are in best position to diagnose if your system is vulnerable to any backdoor access. 

Feel free to let us know once you hear any update regarding the default NVM version. 

Best regards,

Crisselle C.

Intel® Customer Support

[Mischa]

Hello Crisselle,

I already told them about the keyboard earlier and they told me they never heard of such problems. Nothing in their database. I could try AMD, the Ryzen 9 5950X is one of their CPUs, but because Intel and AMD processors have 99% of their blueprints in common, I thought I could ask you just the same. I don't think that Gigabyte is the right manufacturer to ask about analog transceivers.

The firmware version is 5.35.41.0. Hope this is enough to get your engineering team started.

Best regards,

Mischa Baars.

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

Thank you for the reply.

Please allow us to re-escalate this request to our engineers. Please expect an update regarding status of your query no later than 3 business days.

Hoping for your kind patience. 

Best regards,

Crisselle C.

Intel® Customer Support

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

I hope this message finds you well!

Please be informed that our engineers is still checking on this matter. We are still waiting for their feedback and rest assured that we will give you an update as soon as possible but no later than 3 business days. 

Thank you for your kind understanding. 

Best regards,

Crisselle C.

Intel® Customer Support

[Mischa]

Helo Crisselle,

Don't worry, take your time.

The Chinese network nodes I was talking about have Realtek Semiconductor RTL8168 network adapters that won't come out of suspend mode when using Wake-on-LAN, the first time after a reboot. It only works from the second attempt onward, after manually pushing the power button once. The I225-V doesn't have that problem. The Wake-on-LAN works perfectly!

More often people assume too quickly that things work as they should. Thank you for looking into it!

Best regards,

Mischa Baars.

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

Thank you for the update. 

Good thing that there is no issue encountered on WOL. But about your PXE concern, please see below update from our engineers as you really need to communicate with your manufacturer for this one. 

Upon closer inspection, we noticed that you are using legacy PXE boot, please note that you are already using the latest version of legacy PXE v0.4.09. The firmware version that you provided seems to be LAN tool version and not the NVM version.

For this request, we would suggest to work further with your manufacturer on the latest NVM update as well as BIOS related settings for the PXE boot.

Feel free to let us know if you have questions or clarifications.

Awaiting to your reply. 

We will follow up after 3 business days in case we don't hear from you. 

Best regards,

Crisselle C.

Intel® Customer Support

[Mischa]

Hello Crisselle,

These are the BIOS settings:

CSM Support: Enabled

LAN PXE Boot Option ROM: Enabled

Storage Boot Option Control: UEFI Only

Other PCI Device ROM Priority: UEFI Only

How can it be set to legacy PXE with the settings as indicated? And even if it was using legacy PXE, it still is an Intel software product (Intel Boot Agent GE v0.4.09) on top of an Intel hardware product (Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V) that returns the errors. This setup boots the Gigabyte X570S AERO G (Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V) from a Chinese mini pc that was to be replaced by a second Gigabyte X570S AERO G (Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V) and was serving as a test to see if buying a second Gigabyte X570S was of any use at all.

As I told you earlier, the Chinese mini pcs are running 'Intel UNDI PXE-2.1 build (0.83)' firmware (on top of 'Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PXI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)' network adapters). This setup boots the Chinese mini pcs from the Gigabyte X570S and has never had any problems with the network. Changes are virtually zero it is the physical network that is the problem. The Chinese mini pcs do boot legacy PXE, at least for the 'Network' and the 'Video'. 'Storage' and 'Other PCI Devices' are also set to UEFI. Trying options other than these do not influence the first setup.

Network and Video are missing from the Gigabyte X570S AERO G BIOS and are therefore assumed to be set to 'UEFI only' as well.

On closer inspection, both setups' linux journals return the following vendor class: PXEClient:Arch:00000:UNDI:002001. They are indeed both running in legacy mode. Apparently I don't have the means to boot it in UEFI PXE mode. But still I don't see why it matters in what mode it is running or how that would make the problem unsolvable.

These are more or less the factory settings. I had hoped I could have expected it to work like that.

Hopefully you have a somewhat better solution that you can offer than the solution from the previous mail. Your help would be very much appreciated. The firmware version of the Gigabyte X570S AERO G is F4C, the latest firmware version. The firmware can not be updated until Gigabyte has released a new firmware version and that can only be done after you have updated your Intel Boot Agent GE. Only this would resolve the problem and only then it would be useful to buy a second Gigabyte X570S AERO G based computer.

Best regards,

Mischa Baars.

P.S. I think your PXE-M0F moves are PXE-E61 insane too! I'm really enjoying myself!

[Mike_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

Thank you for the quick reply. I will have this checked again, kindly give us 2 to 3 working days to provide an update.

Best regards,

Michael L.

Intel® Customer Support

[Mike_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

I hope you're having a wonderful day. We just want to update you that we are still checking this issue.

Kindly give us another 2 to 3 working days to provide an update.

Best regards,

Michael L.

Intel® Customer Support

[Mischa]

Hi Michael,

No problem. Take all the time you need.

Looking forward to tie up 200 machines to 1 server without having to attach 200 keyboards and 200 monitors to deal with undesirable user input.

Best regards,

Mischa Baars.

[Mike_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

I hope this message finds you well. We just want to update you that we are still checking this issue with our Engineers.

Please give us another 2 to 3 working days to provide an update.

Best regards,

Michael L.

Intel® Customer Support

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

Good day and I hope this message finds you well!

Please be advised that we are still waiting for the update on this matter from our engineering team. We will get back to you as soon as we heard from them but no later than 3 business days. 

Thank you for your kind understanding. 

Best regards,

Crisselle C.

Intel® Customer Support

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Mischa,

Good day!

Please be advised that this request is still escalated to our engineers. We apologize if this is taking too long but rest assured that we will give you an update as soon as we receive any feedback from them. 

Please expect another update no later than 3 business days.

Hoping for your kind patience. 

Best regards,

Crisselle C.

Intel Customer Support

[Mischa]

Hello Crisselle,

Don't worry about how long it takes to fix the problem. As long as the problem is fixed, it doesn't matter to me how long it takes. Take your time and focus on quality instead of on speed.

Thank you for you help!

Best regards,

Mischa Baars.