Pressing F1....

Explosive_Cornflake

Long time since I posted on this part of the site, but I was wondering if someone could come up with some smart ideas.
I bought one of those cheap dell T105 servers at the start of the year. First time I bought a prebuilt in a few years and I remember why, the MB is woeful.
On with my question. I have the machine running as a headless server in the attic. 8 HD's with a bit of soldering magic, works fine for my RAID5 array.
Anywho, the SATA card I use causes a few problems before the OS starts so I get a warning message about PCI resources. Works fine in the OS, so I'm not worried about it.
Dell in there infinite wisdom ask you tp press F1 to continue to onto GRUB. It does this with when there is no keybaord installed. There's no option in the BIOS to ignore errors. This is not to useful when I want to change kernel and need to reboot, as I'm often on the far side of the world from the server.
So, I need a way to send an F1 signal to the machine. The serial port doesn't seem active until I get to grub, at least nothing is output from it during the POST phase.
The system doesn't have PS/2 ports as far as I remember.
You can disable the USB ports, but they are active until POST is finished.
You can't tape down the F1 key as POST doesn't like it being constantly held down.
One thing I noticed was you can tap F1 repeatedly, and it's fine then.
What I was thinking of doing was tpaing down F1, and using a capacitor or something so as it's sent as a repeated stroke, rather than a continuous one. Disable the USB ports, so after POST the OS's doesn't see F1 F1 F1 F1, etc.
The smart option would be to just get a new mobo, but it's not in the spirit of this project.
I tried a different sata card, even a dell PERC5, at caused the same issue.
Has anyone any advice on my above suggestion, or got a smarter way to get around the issue.
So information that may be useful: There's 3 BIOS revisions for the board, all have the same issue.
I may have another low power computer beside it soon to act as a firewall, it'll have two serial and usb ports, so it could be an option to use this.
Anyway, questions or comments, let me know.

L31mr0d

connect a keyboard to the server then develop an elaborate rube goldberg machine that when you ring a mobile its vibration starts a chain of events which ends with a gun shooting the F1 key. Of course this will only work once and you'll need to buy a new keyboard everytime but still.. twud be awesome.

Also, thinking laterally, there should be a way of updating the kernel without needing a restart. I think you can run 2 kernels side by side and switch between them on the fly without restarting. Can't find the article right now though.

Explosive_Cornflake

Loss of power with lack of UPS is more so a problem for me, but I'll keep the rube goldbery in mind

L31mr0d

there is also the iffy matter of editing the BIOS. It can be done but it's a real headache on DELLs. Is there no way of setting the option in the BIOS to "halt on <none>"

Col_Loki

You could get a DRAC card for it, might be able to pick one up cheap (or you might be lucky and the server would have one already).
A DRAC card is basically a mix of a GFX card & Network card, it allow you to log into the machine VIA Web browser and will display everything including BIOS / that annoying F1 prompt.

Might be to extravagent for what you want but thought id throw it out there.....


[Edit]
Theres always the option of a Wireless Keyboard, you could have it upstairs and it should work through to the attic......

Explosive_Cornflake

L31mr0d wrote: »

there is also the iffy matter of editing the BIOS. It can be done but it's a real headache on DELLs. Is there no way of setting the option in the BIOS to "halt on <none>"

Nope, see my post above. I reckon DELL did it to make you upgrade to a better server.

Col_Loki wrote: »

You could get a DRAC card for it, might be able to pick one up cheap (or you might be lucky and the server would have one already).
A DRAC card is basically a mix of a GFX card & Network card, it allow you to log into the machine VIA Web browser and will display everything including BIOS / that annoying F1 prompt.

Might be to extravagent for what you want but thought id throw it out there.....


[Edit]
Theres always the option of a Wireless Keyboard, you could have it upstairs and it should work through to the attic......

Thought of a DRAC alright, but a new mobo would be cheaper, and I'm trying to do a dirty hack.
Wireless keyboard won't work from a couple thousand km's though, see my first post. I could mess about with a wireless receiver, and some sort of transmitter connect to another computer, but that's getting into buying extra hardware which I'd like to avoid.
Capacitor or some sort on the power line in the USB or something is what I think. Anyone know of a way to implement it?

PogMoThoin

You need Homer Simpsons wooden birdie, You know the one that presses the button for him

Explosive_Cornflake

PogMoThoin wrote: »

You need Homer Simpsons wooden birdie, You know the one that presses the button for him

"I just tripled my productivity!"

Col_Loki

Would it be an option to setup a Virtual OS?
Ie install a standard one that you will leave on 24/7 , have a VM running on it that you can reboot/change etc without loosing connection to the machine?

Cheap and no F1 problems unless you reboot the main OS (a cheap and cheerful Power Backup unit would be a good idea incase there is a short power outage....even if it keeps the server up for 10mins....you could prob pick up a used one for almost free.)

Conar

We don't have any of those cheaper style Dell servers in work but we do have more than 100 Poweredges and we don't get F1 prompts on them.

There's also a System Event Log in the BIOS.
You can try clearing that.
Perhaps there's some minor error that isn't stopping boot but enough to bring up a boot prompt.

Failing that I'd clear CMOS and/or update the firmware on everything.

L31mr0d

I really can't see how you are going to do this without spending ANY money. How much of a dab hand are you at soldering? You could put together a simple 555 timer circuit and a variable resistor and wire it up to the F1 key and set it so that it sends a voltage signal every 10 minutes or so.

Explosive_Cornflake

Not too bad at it, gettting better anyway . I've used a 555 before to make a one of those spinning light HD access things, although I can't find the video these days.
I probably will spend money at some stage, and give in a buy a new mobo .I'd also like to throw my hand at making a a case for it. At the minute I have 6 hard drive stuck to the bottom of the case (the case is stored upside down) with hot glue and two 120mm's pointing at them so it's less than ideal.
I'm just trying to use a dirty hack at the minute because I can, and I don't really mind spending a small amount on parts to acheive it.
I do really like the idea using a circuit like you mentioned, so if anyone wants to throw their hand at a schematic for that, I'd be greatful.

L31mr0d

the first thing you should do is just a quick test to see how much voltage is being fed to the keys, its probably around 5v... the below link shows a circuit schematic you could use. Although it requires a 9v DC source

http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/projects/timer.htm

Conar

I have 2 x old PCI Compaq Remote Insight Boards which are similar to a DRAC.
They are full length cards and I've never tried them outside of a Compaq server but you're welcome to one if you want to try it.

Explosive_Cornflake

Thanks for the offer, but I wouldn't want to waste good hardware on it.
I might just try and hack together a circuit, see if that works.
I'll hopefully move to a better mobo in september,which will allow for more expandability.

astrofool

We had a machine with the exact same problem, but it was caused by the DRAC (built in) card incidentally Every reboot, we would have to put a ticket in to get someone in the datacenter to press F1. The fix: Dell would replace the motherboard, fixing the problem, for €1000. We bought a new server

I like your capacitor idea though But I can see it failing just when it's needed. Would another SATA card be a more reliable solution?

Explosive_Cornflake

The PERC5 card caused the same issue. The PERC6 is the card for that machine, but I'd get a new mobo cheaper.
It's only a temp solution I want, I'll probably build a case to house a few parts soon enough when I get holidays, and I'll try for a new mobo then of the same socket that takes ECC ram.
There's nothing critical on the machine, it's only a NFS server at the end of the day for my mp3's, but whenI'm stuck away from home I like to stream them.

L31mr0d

Explosive_Cornflake wrote: »

Thanks for the offer, but I wouldn't want to waste good hardware on it.
I might just try and hack together a circuit, see if that works.
I'll hopefully move to a better mobo in september,which will allow for more expandability.

what you could do is set up a simple transistor circuit to act as a switch on the original circuit I linked you to, the voltage for the base would be from the ~5v being fed to the keyboard when it is turned on. This way the circuit will only activate when the PC is powered on. The transistor will let the 9v supply pass and as the output you could simple replace one of the LEDs with the input line for F1 on the motherboard.

Pimp Ninja

Forgive me if this sounds blaringly obvious, L31mr0d mentioned it above.

If the POST is halting on a keyboard error, is there no option in the BIOS for it to ignore keyboard errors.

Other than that, can you not leave a keyboard connected, an old PS2/Serial one even ?

Explosive_Cornflake

Probably not as blaringly obvious as reading the thread.

Ben Kane

Hi All,

You've probably realised by now, but there is a new BIOS revision for the T105 1.3.2 which allow you to choose to disable keyboard errors on boot.

Although I think some of the ideas that you all came up with were sublime, this may be the most suitable solution.

Explosive_Cornflake

I dumped that mobo ages ago. Got a cheapo one for 50e. Thanks for the advice though.

Ben Kane wrote: »

Hi All,

You've probably realised by now, but there is a new BIOS revision for the T105 1.3.2 which allow you to choose to disable keyboard errors on boot.

Although I think some of the ideas that you all came up with were sublime, this may be the most suitable solution.

Ben Kane

That's a shame! I bet you had to get a new case too as it's a Dell. They make the M/b's as a mirror image so they can't fit into a standard case?

Explosive_Cornflake

Yup, well, I used an old case. The Dell case wasn't quite ATX, wasn;t BTX either. Just some weird thing. I needed a new case, got 8 disks in it now. Only part that is original is the processor though.