Surface Pro 6 PXE Issues - Any Advice

[eddrogers84]

Dearest technology people!

 

We have recently purchased a number of Surface Pro 6 devices for a pilot in the school.

 

We are loving them, however having a bit of a nightmare when it comes to re-imaging them using PXE.

 

We deploy OS by SCCM 18.10. Standard desktops image perfectly, however Surface Devices are proving a pain. We have the official Microsoft docks and USB network adaptor.

 

In DHCP we have added the following IP Helpers (which prove to work a couple of times):

 

When booting the surface we are holing the volume down, it jumps into PXE over IPv4, goes through the motions, even stating NBP file downloaded successfully. Then instead of prompting for ENTER, it jumps to PXE over IPv6.

 

Any help would be highly appreciated. We have gone top to bottom in the bios disabling and enabling all options.

 

Many Thanks

 

Edd

[FishCustard]

As a workaround, could you put the SCCM boot image on a USB drive and use that? At least you could get them imaging while you work on the PXE problem.

[eddrogers84]

Hey FishCustard

 

We have already done that and have been using them, now in a position when we want to ready the infrastructure/environment for future dev.

 

thanks though.

 

Edd

[FishCustard]

No worries - sorry, I can't help more than that as I don't have any Surface devices for experimenting with!

[steveg]

Sounds like a very similar problem I am having trying to get an Intel NUC to pxe boot. It says Succeed to download nbp file, and then goes back to the boot selection menu. Other machines boot fine over pxe, just not these ones. They have an intel i219-v nic in, not sure what the surface pro uses?

 

Have you tried updating the firmware in the dock? Annoyingly for me, the latest bios for the NUC pc's is quite old, there is a newer version which they pulled for some reason.

[eddrogers84]

Thank you for the replies.

 

I have actually just managed to fix the issue.

 

We are using Cisco Meraki (Full Stack) so I dont know if this fix applied to everyone.

 

In our DHCP settings for this particular VLAN, I removed the DHCP option in my original post, and directed the PXE boot to the wdsmgfw.efi file instead of the standard wdsnbp.com file in the smsboot directory.

 

This seems to have sorted the issue and now PXE booting on the Docks perfectly. (still have an issue with PXE on the USB adapter, but thats pointing to bad drivers).

 

The PXE boot is a little slow initally, but once its in WinPE its normal speed.

 

Shall keep you posted if there are any further issues.

 

Thanks

 

Edd

[Duke5A]

Thank you for the replies.

 

I have actually just managed to fix the issue.

 

We are using Cisco Meraki (Full Stack) so I dont know if this fix applied to everyone.

 

In our DHCP settings for this particular VLAN, I removed the DHCP option in my original post, and directed the PXE boot to the wdsmgfw.efi file instead of the standard wdsnbp.com file in the smsboot directory.

 

This seems to have sorted the issue and now PXE booting on the Docks perfectly. (still have an issue with PXE on the USB adapter, but thats pointing to bad drivers).

 

The PXE boot is a little slow initally, but once its in WinPE its normal speed.

 

Shall keep you posted if there are any further issues.

 

Thanks

 

Edd

 

Are all your devices in the environment UEFI booting? If not, then the ones still doing BIOS boot might not function after that change. Using DHCP on a Windows server you can setup profiles that hand out the options based on certain criteria. The DHCP address request packet from the client will actually identify the architecture. I've got three profiles setup on mine: one for UEFI x86, a second for UEFI x64 and the last for legacy BIOS booting.

[mukz]

Are you using a few docks to do imaging on multiple surfaces, if so u need to add the duplicate hardware id so it is ignored

[TJ-Diggers]

I had this previously.... can’t remove the fix I can remover it was something we had to change in the bios. I may of even disabled IPv6

[Arthur]

In DHCP we have added the following DHCP Options (which prove to work a couple of times):

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]53393[/ATTACH]

 

In our DHCP settings for this particular VLAN, I removed the DHCP option in my original post, and directed the PXE boot to the wdsmgfw.efi file instead of the standard wdsnbp.com file in the smsboot directory.

 

This seems to have sorted the issue and now PXE booting on the Docks perfectly.

While DHCP options can be used to PXE boot both BIOS and UEFI-based PCs (see link below), it's better to use IP Helpers on your switch(es).

 

https://2pintsoftware.com/whitepaper-using-dhcp-uefi-bios-pxe-booting

Edited May 22, 2019 by Arthur