Member Avatar for compnutt

i have a dell optiplex gx1p mid tower. 433 mghz pentium 3, 256 megs of ram. had win 2000 wiped the h/d w/ a killdisk, then when i tried to load xp all lites on & i beep when the black screen appeared. it showed lanwork technoligy co. bios revision a-10. then displayed the following list DHCP mac add 00 C0 4F 41 BC 16, DHCP ...../spinning PXE-MOF: exiting PXE below that was stike F1 to reboot or F2 for setup utility. this repeats same on reboot. i'm wondering if i need to use a startup disk w/ my xp cd. i don't know if there is something wrong w/ my bios. this pc worked fine before i wiped it clean. this is a self-booting diskette & sats to set bios to boot from floppy. this i did. can anybody shed some lite on this problem. i' greatly appreciate it. i use this pc for my bussiness use at home. thanks david!

  • 3 Contributors
  • 3 Replies
  • 199 Views
  • 3 Days Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by JANINE

Dani AI

Generated

’s boot messages (DHCP/MAC followed by a PXE message) show the network interface’s boot ROM tried to network‑boot because it couldn’t find another bootable device. “Exiting PXE ROM” simply means the NIC gave up and returned control to the BIOS, which is why the system stops and asks for F1/F2. A single short POST beep is usually normal; repeated or patterned beeps point to hardware faults — consult Dell’s OptiPlex GX1 beep codes if the pattern isn’t a single short tone.

Practical checklist to narrow the cause:

  • Use the setup utility (the F2 prompt on most Dells) to confirm the CD‑ROM and hard disk appear in BIOS/IDE listings; if a drive is missing, reseat power/IDE cables and verify jumpers.
  • Verify the Windows XP disc is actually bootable by trying it in another machine; a scratched or non‑bootable disc will let the NIC try PXE instead.
  • If the CD is bootable but this PC still falls to PXE, disable the NIC boot ROM or change boot order in BIOS so a CD device is tried before network boot.
  • If BIOS keeps reverting to network boot, replace the CMOS battery (old batteries can reset settings).
  • If the optical drive won’t work, a boot floppy/utility CD that loads CD drivers or swapping in a known‑good drive will let XP setup run.

Reseat RAM, remove nonessential cards, and try a minimal hardware config while installing. Credit to for flagging the network‑boot symptom and to for reminding about the setup utility — those leads make it far more likely this is a boot‑device detection issue rather than a bad XP CD or a completely failed motherboard.

Recommended Answers

All 3 Replies

Member Avatar for JANINE

you need to setup windows so press that f2 key to get the windows xp setup utility. :-)

Member Avatar for BuggZ

It sounds like your BIOS settings were changed to boot from a LAN connection as indicated by teh reference to DHCP and the MAC address. Go into the BIOS on your computer and set the boot devices to boot from the CD-Rom drive first and then the hard drive second. Once that is done you should be able to boot from your Win XP CD.

Member Avatar for JANINE

It sounds like your BIOS settings were changed to boot from a LAN connection as indicated by teh reference to DHCP and the MAC address. Go into the BIOS on your computer and set the boot devices to boot from the CD-Rom drive first and then the hard drive second. Once that is done you should be able to boot from your Win XP CD.

sh*t i forgot to mention changin that. thanks for mentioning buggz;)

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.