topic Re: BIOS POST boot time in ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL)

BIOS POST boot time

chris-sc — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 10:10:35 GMT

Hello

Is there any way to speed up POST boot time? It takes Minutes till the Server begins booting the OS. This is very very annoying especially when you are testing e.g. Auto Deploy (boot many times).

regards,

Chris

Re: BIOS POST boot time

Torsten. — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 12:16:25 GMT

You did not say what server you have. But usually you can't. Maybe you can remove some memory or I/O cards that you don't need for your testing to reduce the test and scan time. As an example, for the new SuperDome X POST takes up to one hour because of the 12 TB memory ...

Re: BIOS POST boot time

waaronb — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:03:14 GMT

Like Torsten said, the BIOS POST time depends on what system you have, what options are installed, how much memory, etc.

There might be a few things you could tweak, but it's already just doing a quick memory test unless it detects a change in how much memory is installed. The other things that normally happen in a Proliant during boot is when all of the option "cards" do their thing, like the array controller, ILO, and maybe the NIC module.

All of those things have to show something during boot so you can hit a key and configure them, so it's really just something that has to be there.

I guess whether it takes 30 seconds or 5 minutes, it's one of those things that server admins have probably learned to deal with over the years. I know I have. :)

Re: BIOS POST boot time

chris-sc — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 13:38:55 GMT

I have a HP Proliant DL380 G9 Server.

No Disks, No Raid Controller, but 2x 10GBit PCIe. 256GB RAM, 2x 2690v3 CPU's.

Btw. its not for Production Site, because starttime does not matter there. It only matters during Testing/Trying on a Development Site. So maybe there are some unsafe options, which could be enabled but are not recommended for production?