Windows Forum·65,705 discussions

Question about headless XP box

Locked

Greetings,

I have a customer that is running a system in a headless configuration for display purposes. Problem is, evidently it is rebooting itself now and again. But when it does, it notices it doesn’t have a keyboard hooked up and waits for keyboard input.

Anybody do something similar? I know the first order of business would be to stop it from rebooting, but even then, what would be the best way to handle this unit? Perhaps an ethernet kvm type setup?

Brian

Topic

Clarifications

In reply to Question about headless XP box

Clarifications

This sounds like a POST issue

In reply to Question about headless XP box

This sounds like a POST issue. That is, during startup, the BIOS is looking for the keyboard and will not proceed to boot the OS without one. Usually you can change an option in the BIOS to ignore a missing keyboard.

Is it a POST/BIOS issue or is the problem you see later?

Maybe this too

In reply to This sounds like a POST issue

You may also be able to set an option in the BIOS to disable the “Wait for F1 on errors”

Wes

If the M’Board wasn’t designed to be run Headless

In reply to Question about headless XP box

You could have a real problem as you’ll have a stop in BIOS for errors that will be hard to get around. If you where to use a KMV switch you would need one of the Automatic ones that switches to the machine booting or the problem will remain.

Personally I would be looking at why this unit is rebooting in the first place it could be a buildup of dust and other rubbish inside the case or a bad mains supply in which case you’ll need to place a UPS between it and the mains to keep it running.

Depending on where it is placed it just might be cheaper to attach a cheap Keyboard & mouse to the unit and let it reboot itself without hanging when it doesn’t find the keyboard and when that problem is sorted out the OS will hang without a mouse present if you are using any Windows MS.

The units that are designed to run headless have a fall back loop that tricks the Hardware & software into thinking that there is a Keyboard & mouse available on the boot.

Col

Set the option

In reply to If the M’Board wasn’t designed to be run Headless

in the motherboard to not stop post on keyboard errors. There is usually an option that says stop post, and then has a set of options for mouse, keyboard, monitor, just disable that, and the system will come back up.

Now we have to figure out why its rebooting.

[Author]

Replies