I'm trying to use a DM2800MT mobo in an embedded app, with no keyboard or monitor. One possibly fatal problem is that the BIOS will sometimes ask a question and wait for input from the keyboard, even if there is no keyboard connected. The one I'm most commonly encountering is:
The previous boot attempt failed.
Would you like to restore Fast Boot on the next boot? (Y/N)
This can happen in the real world if you interrupt the power at the moment the BIOS is about to load from the boot device. I can make it happen reliably by hitting reset at this same point. But either way, if I hit reset again, I get the same question again. If I turn the power off and on, I get the same question again. I can't find any way to escape from this condition, other than to hook up a keyboard. (And hook up a monitor, so that I can see why the thing is just sitting there like an expensive brick.) I can't have a customer sending back a unit for repair just because the BIOS is stuck on stupid.
This makes no sense. Since this mobo ONLY supports a USB keyboard, the BIOS knows perfectly well there is no keyboard connected. I suppose I could just disable Fast Boot, but I'm looking for the shortest boot time possible. And this isn't the only message I've seen that waits for input from a phantom keyboard.
I downloaded the BIOS configuration tool, in the hope it would provide some extra control over this, but it doesn't. If anyone from Intel is listening, the BIOS really ought to be tweaked so that it answers Y to the above, if there's no keyboard. In the meantime, does anyone else know of any other trick to get around this?