# No GPU card diskless node boot fails



## Beeblebrox (Mar 23, 2012)

I have a diskless node that is also headless (no GPU on mobo). It fails to boot (does not respond to ping) but boots fine when I place a GPU card in the PCIe slot.

What should I disable in rc.conf (xorg?) for this node to boot properly? I can't get to error logs as /var is mounted as md0.


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## SirDice (Mar 23, 2012)

It's most likely a BIOS issue. Some PCs will complain if there's no graphics card. Similar to the "No keyboard error" messages. It simply refuses to boot unless you press F1 (which is kinda tricky if it does have a keyboard error  ).

Look in the BIOS, there's usually a setting that says something like "Boot, even if there are errors".


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## Beeblebrox (Mar 23, 2012)

Well, there's an obvious reason I missed it on this mobo - It does not have that option! BIOS is from '09 so not that old, but <halt on errors> menu is missing. No updates available either.

Looks like it's time to dip into coreboot, which I have been meaning to do for a while btw, as soon as I get my jails, tinderbox and a few others out of the way.


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## SirDice (Mar 23, 2012)

Does it boot at all? You can usually tell just by listening to the noises coming from the hard drive.

I'd also suggest configuring a serial console, so you can see what's going on, if it boots at all. It will also allow you to access it in single user mode.

27.6 Setting Up the Serial Console


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## Beeblebrox (Mar 23, 2012)

> You can tell by noises from HDD


I can tell by the network traffic: There is none. Also this mobo has an embedded Gbit NIC, which at boot starts out as 10/100 (indicated by LED on the switch) then switches to Gbit mode after about 20-30 secs from power-on and PXE process starts after Gbit mode is active. Without GPU card, the NIC never switches to Gbit mode (meaning BIOS does not finish its boot cycle) so I'm willing to bet that BIOS halts on a no-GPU error.


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