[vortex] 3c905c ROM enable/disable

[Bogdan Costescu]

On 8 Nov 2000 sacrificial-spam-address@horizon.com wrote:

> 3com supply a DOS utility to adjust (some of) "the" EEPROM settings.
> One of the settings disables the boot ROM, so the BIOS doesn't see it.

As I wrote in my previous message, if BIOS doesn't even look for the boot
ROM, it doesn't matter if it's enabled or not and what its content is, so
you don't need to disable it.
Now the question is: are there BIOS-es that can boot off network (so they
try to execute boot ROM code) and do not provide a way to disable this ?
Only if this is true, disabling boot ROM is the only way to avoid BIOS to
try to boot off it.

> This speeds up booting, because it doesn't display a message and wait
> for a timeout.

Absolutely true. That's why I turn off network booting in BIOS.

> I thought the analysis might be worth sharing.

It is! Just that the whole analysis probably took you a lot of time, while
changing the boot sequence is a 30 seconds job 8-)

Sincerely,

Bogdan Costescu

IWR - Interdisziplinaeres Zentrum fuer Wissenschaftliches Rechnen
Universitaet Heidelberg, INF 368, D-69120 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Telephone: +49 6221 54 8869, Telefax: +49 6221 54 8868
E-mail: Bogdan.Costescu@IWR.Uni-Heidelberg.De