FishCustard Posted December 17, 2018 Posted December 17, 2018 Anyone seen this before? I got a cheapy mini PC from Amazon, hoping to put it in the meeting room as an instant-on PC. It booted okay first time, but after I got into the BIOS and set the boot priority to IPv4 PXE, it simply refuses to boot. I just get a black screen and nothing else. Is it just dead? Strange that a BIOS change would cause that isn't it?
Dos_Box Posted December 17, 2018 Posted December 17, 2018 (edited) Anyone seen this before? I got a cheapy mini PC from Amazon, hoping to put it in the meeting room as an instant-on PC. It booted okay first time, but after I got into the BIOS and set the boot priority to IPv4 PXE, it simply refuses to boot. I just get a black screen and nothing else. Is it just dead? Strange that a BIOS change would cause that isn't it? Which one was it? I bought a Chinese one for a media PC a few years back and it had a BIOS with all features visible as standard (apparently manufacturers can lock bits and hide them if required). Looking on some of the forums for it, some users had reported that even the most seemingly innocent of changes could almost brick it. I would not be surprised if this could still be the case. Edited December 17, 2018 by Dos_Box 1
FishCustard Posted December 17, 2018 Author Posted December 17, 2018 One of these. Oh that's good to know... if I can't get it working tomorrow it's going back to Amazon then! 1
Dos_Box Posted December 17, 2018 Posted December 17, 2018 (edited) Mine was a NUC-alike with a 4 core Celeron and was quite nice (sold it to a friend who still uses it to this day). Did you notice that the BIOS had a lot of options under each category, possibly far more than a regular BIOS? Edited December 18, 2018 by Dos_Box 1
FishCustard Posted December 17, 2018 Author Posted December 17, 2018 There seemed to be a fair few options, yes. Surprising for a board this basic - I guess they don't turn them off, but fiddling with them could cause issues (read: bricks). The only thing I changed was the boot order though. And yep, I tried HDMI, VGA and DP.
Dos_Box Posted December 18, 2018 Posted December 18, 2018 There seemed to be a fair few options, yes. Surprising for a board this basic - I guess they don't turn them off, but fiddling with them could cause issues (read: bricks). The only thing I changed was the boot order though. And yep, I tried HDMI, VGA and DP. Yeah, the threads I was reading said that even basic changes could brick a unit. In the end we made up a list of BIOS options which could be safely fiddled with. Just a thought, have you tried booting with a live network cable attached? I can appreciate that you changed it to LAN/PXE, but just checking.
gshaw Posted December 18, 2018 Posted December 18, 2018 Yup I bricked a similar net-top machine by changing BIOS from Legacy to UEFI. They seem very flaky.
FishCustard Posted December 18, 2018 Author Posted December 18, 2018 Yeah, the threads I was reading said that even basic changes could brick a unit. In the end we made up a list of BIOS options which could be safely fiddled with. Just a thought, have you tried booting with a live network cable attached? I can appreciate that you changed it to LAN/PXE, but just checking. Bleh. And yeah, I've tried with and without live cable. Will try restoring the BIOS today, otherwise it's going back as "DOA".... 1
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