Author Topic: Dell XT2 BIOS boot problem (Read 10622 times)

bitwelder · « **on:** July 05, 2015, 08:42:01 am »

Some time ago I got a 2nd hand Dell XT2. Everything works fine, except at the booting stage:
after the Dell boot logo, I have to wait 40-50s for any OS to boot from any media. All I see during that time is a black screen with a blinking underscore cursor.

The laptop has latest f/w version, but I noticed that if I try to re-apply it, the first part of the flashing, about the Intel ME fails with some obscure error code.
So I wonder if it's the initialization of the Intel ME that makes the boot slower (i.e. BIOS waits for ME to initialize, until a timeout expires)

Where is likely this ME code residing, is the same as the BIOS chip (which I see in this forum thread https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/8-pin-smd-zif-on-dell-xt2-laptop/ it's even socketed) ?
If so, should be enough to try to externally reflash the BIOS (if i'm able to find the BIOS image AND supposing the flash chip is still healthy) or by getting a replacement chip via ebay?

Psi · « **Reply #1 on:** July 05, 2015, 10:08:17 am »

If you press the F key to bring up a boot device menu and select your HDD do you still get the delay?

Also check that you have network boot disabled in the bios. It could be searching for something to boot from over the lan and timing out.

German_EE · « **Reply #2 on:** July 05, 2015, 10:29:57 am »

Agreed, that flashing cursor sounds like an attempted network boot.

bitwelder · « **Reply #3 on:** July 05, 2015, 10:31:29 am »

Quote from: Psi on July 05, 2015, 10:08:17 am

If you press the F key to bring up a boot device menu and select your HDD do you still get the delay?

Bringing up the one-time boot selection/BIOS setup screen is immediate, no delay.

netboot is disabled, ~~but out of curiosity I have to try to plug the laptop to a mirrored switch port so I can take a look at possible network traffic during that delay time.~~

EDIT: I have checked whether there is any network activity on the ethernet port during the mysterious delay time and there is absolutely none.

amyk · « **Reply #4 on:** July 05, 2015, 01:17:16 pm »

Is it trying to boot from an external floppy or CDROM?

Look for any options to do with "extended POST" in the BIOS - servers usually have this enabled and they take minutes to start booting.

The other possibility is that the HDD is starting to die, if the black screen with the cursor is after POST has finished; temporarily replace it with a different one or an adapter+USB/SD/etc. and see if it boots much faster.

bitwelder · « **Reply #5 on:** July 05, 2015, 04:15:48 pm »

Same slowness if I plug a bootable CD/DVD (which is part of the docking station) or USB stick, and set to boot from that device.

As for the BIOS extensions, the only option is through Intel ME: Intel Management Engine BIOS Extensions (MEBx)
If I select that option, I get a screen with
Intel Management Engine <version yada yada>
ME is initializing.......

the line of dots grows for 53s, then it proceeds to boot the OS

The 53 seconds is actually the same delay I get with the blinking underline cursor in the initial thread post.
(Obviously?) there is no way to disable Intel ME

bobcat · « **Reply #6 on:** July 05, 2015, 05:39:34 pm »

Try pressing ctrl-P after the first boot screen.
This may help http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/intelmebxsettings_v02.pdf

Shock · « **Reply #7 on:** July 05, 2015, 05:42:36 pm »

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/latitude-xt2-slow-boot.549282/

Normally it's good practice to do a bios defaults after a firmware upgrade. I'd copy down any settings though to see what has changed. Careful when swapping disk technologies you can cause windows to become non bootable and hard to recover.

bitwelder · « **Reply #8 on:** July 09, 2015, 06:10:45 am »

I extracted the BIOS chip, erased & reflashed (& verified) it externally with Buspirate, using a .bin image I retrieved, put it back in place, reset all settings, disabled boot from all external devices, etc. but the problem is still there.
As the .bin file has the previous BIOS version, I then tried to apply the latest version from Windows .exe, and it still fails to update the ME part of the f/w (rest of the f/w components are updated just fine).

Psi · « **Reply #9 on:** July 09, 2015, 07:00:22 am »

Quote from: bitwelder on July 05, 2015, 10:31:29 am

Quote from: Psi on July 05, 2015, 10:08:17 am
If you press the F key to bring up a boot device menu and select your HDD do you still get the delay?
Bringing up the one-time boot selection/BIOS setup screen is immediate, no delay.

But what about after you select an option, does the boot menu bypass the problem?

Shock · « **Reply #10 on:** July 09, 2015, 09:13:26 am »

You read the link I posted?

An example of being careful would be - remove or swap out your disk with a temp disk and change the bios options mentioned in that link to see if it boots faster.

bitwelder · « **Reply #11 on:** July 09, 2015, 01:57:12 pm »

Quote from: Psi

But what about after you select an option, does the boot menu bypass the problem?

Nope. After I select an option (ANY option, booting from internal HDD, USB stick or live CD) I still have to suffer the penalty delay time before the system proceeds to boot.

Quote from: Shock

You read the link I posted?

Yes I did find that article already some time ago, and no matter what type of SATA device I select (SATA/IRRT/AHCI) the delay does not disappear.

amyk · « **Reply #12 on:** July 09, 2015, 02:16:02 pm »

Can you get into the ME setup menu as mentioned above? I suspect it hasn't actually been fully disabled.

bitwelder · « **Reply #13 on:** July 09, 2015, 04:04:30 pm »

No, and that's what puzzles me: when I select the ME option it only shows the 'ME is initializing' message but then it offers no option.

BTW: where does ME 'live'? I was hoping to re-write its code by wiping the BIOS with a 3rd party tool, but there must be something some other chip that is not 100% responsive.

Stonent · « **Reply #14 on:** July 09, 2015, 11:48:19 pm »

Power the laptop off. Then hold down Fn and turn back on. You should see "Diagnostic boot selected"

Let it run through the quick tests, and if you like the extended hard drive and memory tests.

Let us know if anything fails.

Psi · « **Reply #15 on:** July 11, 2015, 03:29:12 pm »

i would note down all the bios settings and then go through and turn everything off that can be turned off. serial ports, ide controllers (except your boot one), raid modes, onboard nic, sound card, usb controllers etc.. turn it all off and see if the problem remains.

If that fixes the problem you just have to figure out what setting fixed it.
That should lead you to the piece off hardware that is faulty and causing the timeout.

bobbylin · « **Reply #16 on:** July 11, 2015, 04:25:41 pm »

Check bios battery? It might be the dead battery its trying to reconfigure everything every boot?

amyk · « **Reply #17 on:** July 12, 2015, 02:37:38 am »

Quote from: bitwelder on July 09, 2015, 04:04:30 pm

BTW: where does ME 'live'? I was hoping to re-write its code by wiping the BIOS with a 3rd party tool, but there must be something some other chip that is not 100% responsive.

ME itself is in the chipset. Code is in the same flash as the BIOS.

See these slides for an interesting (and somewhat frightening) look at ME:

http://me.bios.io/images/c/ca/Rootkit_in_your_laptop.pdf
https://ruxconbreakpoint.com/assets/2014/slides/bpx-Breakpoint%202014%20Skochinsky.pdf

bitwelder · « **Reply #18 on:** July 12, 2015, 05:37:16 am »

Thanks amyk,
I did found previously one of those documents but as I was searching for something else I did not pay the deserved attention to them.
I think I'll have a look at the recent security research about ME.

Stonent · « **Reply #19 on:** July 12, 2015, 05:42:25 am »

ME is only really used to be able to remotely connect to the computer when it won't boot into the OS.

fluxcapacitor · « **Reply #20 on:** July 14, 2015, 10:25:16 pm »

There are some tools to flash the ME firmware, you might have to cut the ME firmware from a bios from dell.

http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/54860-about-intel-management-engine-firmware.html

HalfManHalfSaab · « **Reply #21 on:** July 15, 2015, 10:16:03 am »

Can you not disable this feature in the BIOS if you don't need it? If not in the BIOS, there might be a jumper to turn it off.

bitwelder · « **Reply #22 on:** July 15, 2015, 01:03:56 pm »

No option in BIOS (and e.g. the Ctrl-P key to enter ME extension menu is unresponsive) and no jumper.

So far what I have found using a tool named meinfo is that the the ME f/w seems to get stuck at the initialization phase.

khaahk · « **Reply #23 on:** July 15, 2015, 10:59:53 pm »

If you can flash the bios externally, then
download http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER01556667M/1/XT2_A15.exe
run it with /writeromfile option
and write the file generated.

fluxcapacitor · « **Reply #24 on:** July 17, 2015, 10:16:56 am »

You have to use -writehdrfile switch to extract. I don`t think theres a ME region that can be cut from the bios,ive checked versions A00 through to A15 (no A8). Theres 2 options ,you can find out which ME version you have with MEInfo and try to find the same version,then flash under dos , or buy a pre-flashed bios chip.


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Author Topic: Dell XT2 BIOS boot problem (Read 10622 times)

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