HP Smart Array issues

[MultimediaMan]

We're running out of BIOS memory to use...I think this problem goes all the way back to DOS/Real Mode; There is only about 64k-640k of low level BIOS RAM available. Each Bootable device with a BIOS to load takes a bite out of this pool of available low level memory, including iPXE.

Some time ago, it wasn't uncommon to see a machine with a number of an add-in cards with BIOS fail to load some add-in BIOS because of these limitations.

Dell and HP are kind of "worst offenders" in this area; they have very complex BIOS boot processes and a number of direct BIOS IO devices (iDRAC/iLO, IPMI, BMC/ Power Managers, Onboard RAID controllers, before even considering Network and Storage HBAs)

Intel-based Network Cards (Pro 1000%FF%, I340, I350, as well as X520 10GbE) have traditionally have had less problems; they also tend to have a much more developed UNDI PXE Stack. Broadcom 1GbE are also fairly trouble free.

Personally, I've run into this problem (chaining from undionly.kpxe to ipxe.pxe) with HP Virtual Fabric (HP 55x series; Emulex and QLogic based cards) and Broadcom 10GbE (HP 53x series) hardware and OEM Broadcom hardware.

I've also run into issues with iPXE retries eventually freezing a machine with the same error: I have compensated by simply putting a reboot in the retry script.