Hi All,
I'm using the Intel D525mw Atom motherboard and have discovered these problems
1) When I connect an external bootable devices like an DVD Drive or a USB memory stick, the PC will hang on the BIOS screen showing code 5A in the right hand corner. If I then power off and on the PC, it will normally work and boot ok from the internal hdd.
2) Another similar problem is that if I have a bootable USB memory drive, the PC won't recognise it and so it doesn't appear in the BIOS boot devices. Even if I press F10, it just shows the internal HDD. If I power off and on and hit F10, it will eventually appear. I have tried differernt vendors of USB drives as well.
3) Even though I have configured the PC to boot to the local HDD first, if a bootable USB drive is inserted, it sometimes (not always) will boot to that first. This tends to happen when I'm installing Windows Home Server 2011. It starts ok from USB drive like I've requested. But once the server wants to reboot to continue the install, it just carries on booting from USB.
All of the above problems can be solved by either warm booting or cold booting the PC. It's intermittent for sure but easy to replicate.
It's quite annoying as I'm a small system builder who has decided to start using these motherboards. Whilst I can build up my PC's ok, and for the most part, people will never need to plug in any USB devices like this, it does make me worry that there could be a serious issue.
Reading on the other posts, it seems this seems to be a common problem epecially for Linux users who try and boot from a USB memory drive.
Has anyone see a similar problem or know of a work around? I'm hoping Intel bring out a new BIOS to fix this as I'm sure that's what is causing the problem.
Many thanks
Leonard
PS: Just discovered as I'm typing this that when the PC hangs with code 5A displayed, if you leave it for about 10 mins, it will then bring up the boot menu.