Penguin Computing Relion 1900e, Technical Manual, Page: 26 / 174

Relion 1900e/2900e Manual
11 Revision 1.3
2.3.1.2 Hot Keys Supported During POST
Certain “Hot Keys” are recognized during POST. A Hot Key is a key or key combination that is recognized as
an unprompted command input, that is, the operator is not prompted to press the Hot Key and typically the
Hot Key will be recognized even while other processing is in progress.
The BIOS recognizes a number of Hot Keys during POST. After the OS is booted, Hot Keys are the
responsibility of the OS and the OS defines its own set of recognized Hot Keys.
The following table provides a list of available POST Hot Keys along with a description for each.
Table 2. POST Hot-Keys
HotKey Combination 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
2.3.1.3 POST Logo/Diagnostic Screen
The Logo/Diagnostic Screen appears in one of two forms:

If Quiet Boot is enabled in the <F2> BIOS setup, a “splash screen” is displayed with a logo image,
which may be the standard Intel Logo Screen or a customized OEM Logo Screen. By default, Quiet
Boot is enabled in BIOS setup, so the Logo Screen is the default POST display. However, if the logo is
displayed during POST, the user can press <Esc> to hide the logo and display the Diagnostic Screen
instead.

If a customized OEM Logo Screen is present in the designated Flash Memory location, the OEM Logo
Screen will be displayed, overriding the default Intel Logo Screen.

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 Setup, the Quiet Boot setting is disregarded and the Text Mode
Diagnostic Screen is displayed unconditionally. This is due to the limitations of Console Redirection,
which transfers data in a mode that is not graphics-compatible.
2.3.1.4 BIOS Boot Pop-Up Menu
The BIOS Boot Specification (BBS) provides a Boot Pop-up menu that can be 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. The pop-up menu simply lists all of 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 installed in Setup, the Administrator password will be required in order
to access the Boot Pop-up menu using the <F6> key. If a User password is entered, the Boot Pop-up menu
will not even appear – the user will be taken directly to the Boot Manager in the Setup, where a User
password allows only booting in the order previously defined by the Administrator.