A brand new Dell keeps trying to boot off a network?

SideWinder · 27 Oct 2007 at 22:29

Okay, my Mum bought a computer from Dell and said it took a long time to load up. I turned it on and it tried to boot from a network..MAC address and Intel External Boot Agent are the key terms i remember? :confused:

So, how do i fix this?

aix0 · 27 Oct 2007 at 22:34

Disable PXE in the bios? F2 I think, have a look around.

ubern00b · 27 Oct 2007 at 22:34

Enter the bios and disable booting from network. Youll probably find the boot order points to network first. Set it to HDD first and it wont try boot from the network first.

Minstadave · 27 Oct 2007 at 22:35

Set the HDD as the first boot device, disable network boot.

If the HDD is dead or unbootable then it will try to boot from the network, so could be a HDD issue.

SideWinder · 27 Oct 2007 at 22:35

I couldn't find anything about networking..that's the problem. I'll take another look though just in case.

I do know the HDD is the first boot device.

SideWinder · 27 Oct 2007 at 22:42

Okay, just checked..nothing at all is on the BIOS.

Boot order:
1: HDD
2: DVD/CDRW thingy
3 and 4 are disabled.

LAN Boot ROM is Disabled and had been before i checked.

Any ideas?

aix0 · 27 Oct 2007 at 22:47

From what you said in your first post, it's surely got to be something to do with PXE. Look through all of the BIOS and see if you can find anything that references that.

bledd · 27 Oct 2007 at 22:50

check for bios update or reset the bios, then retry

Minstadave · 27 Oct 2007 at 23:18

I suspect the harddrive may have been corrupted, so the BIOS can't find anything to boot from and defaults to LAN boot.

aix0 · 27 Oct 2007 at 23:22

Minstadave said:
I suspect the harddrive may have been corrupted, so the BIOS can't find anything to boot from and defaults to LAN boot.

You'd think that the HDD was inaccessible for whatever reason and that it was attempting to boot into PXE, but that doesn't seem to be the case here as the OP hasn't mentioned that he can't boot into a desktop - just that it's a bit slow.

Minstadave · 27 Oct 2007 at 23:27

Sounds to me like there was problems with the first boot and now it only boots to network, could be wrong though.

aix0 · 27 Oct 2007 at 23:29

Minstadave said:
Sounds to me like there was problems with the first boot and now it only boots to network, could be wrong though.

I assumed that he got to a desktop, just slowly lol.

SideWinder · 28 Oct 2007 at 00:20

Nothing about pxe anywhere and yes,it does load to desktop.

ns400r · 28 Oct 2007 at 00:22

Does the PC boot into an operating system if she presses ESC when the PXE booting takes place? Network boot can be bypassed with the ESC key.

Did she also buy an operating system with the new PC?

ns400r · 28 Oct 2007 at 00:23

Time for the model number.

Tute · 28 Oct 2007 at 00:33

bledd. said:
check for bios update or reset the bios, then retry

I'd try either of these.