Intel® Server Board M50CYP2SB Family Technical Product Specification
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11.1
Hot Keys Supported During POST
Certain hot keys are recognized during power-on self-test (POST). A hot key is a key or key combination that
is recognized as an unprompted command input. In most cases, hot keys are recognized even while other
processing is in progress.
BIOS supported hot keys are only recognized by the system BIOS during the system boot time POST
process. Once the POST process has completed and transitions the system boot process to the operating
system, BIOS supported hot keys are no longer recognized.
The following table provides a list of available POST hot keys along with a description for each.
Table 44. POST Hot Keys
Hot Key
Function
<F2>
Enter the BIOS Setup utility
<F6>
Pop-up BIOS boot menu
<F12>
Network boot
<Esc>
Switch from logo screen to diagnostic screen
<Pause>
Stop POST temporarily (press any key to resume)
11.1.1
POST Logo/Diagnostic Screen
If Quiet Boot is enabled in the BIOS Setup utility, a splash screen is displayed with the standard Intel logo
screen or a customized original equipment manufacturer (OEM) logo screen, if one is present, in the
designated flash memory location. By default, Quiet Boot is enabled in the BIOS Setup utility and the logo
screen is the default POST display. However, pressing
<Esc>
hides the logo screen and displays the
diagnostic screen instead during the current boot.
If a logo is not present in the BIOS flash memory space, or if Quiet Boot is disabled in the system
configuration, the POST diagnostic screen is displayed with a summary of system configuration information.
The POST diagnostic screen is purely a text mode screen, as opposed to the graphics mode logo screen.
If console redirection is enabled in the BIOS Setup utility, the Quiet Boot setting is disregarded, and the text
mode diagnostic screen is displayed unconditionally. This action is due to the limitations of console
redirection that transfers data in a mode that is not graphics-compatible.
11.1.2
BIOS Boot Pop-Up Menu
The BIOS boot selection (BBS) menu provides a boot device pop-up menu that is invoked by pressing the
<F6>
key during POST. The BBS pop-up menu displays all available boot devices. The boot order in the pop-
up menu is not the same as the boot order in the BIOS Setup utility. The pop-up menu simply lists all the
available devices from which the system can be booted and allows a manual selection of the desired boot
device.
When an administrator password is configured in the BIOS Setup utility, the administrator password is
required to access the boot pop-up menu. If a user password is entered, the user is taken directly to the boot
manager in the BIOS Setup utility, only allowing booting in the order previously defined by the administrator.
