Unattended PXE boot? Envy laptop, FX-8800P Radeon 7 processor

[Bill_iv]

I have a brand new laptop that I'd like to integrate into a Jenkins setup for running benchmarks. We have Clonezilla and an MS corporate license server. I want the Envy laptop to come up and do a PXE network boot. Clonezilla will serve it the right Windows image, optional driver(s) and Jenkins then applies and runs the benchmark.

My first problem is in booting. I have found how to disable CD/DVD Rom boot, and the network boot (That's the one I want...) but not how to disable the local mass-storage boot. The environment  I'm using hasnetwork-accessible power switches and the conventional setup is PXE boot on power-up, but I can't find any controls in BIOS (f10) or boot menu (f9) to cause PXE boot on powerup.

If I press F12 manually, PXE boot starts and runs for a while. Is there any way to configure the software / hardware so that on powerup it does a PXE boot?

The next problem is that the hardware/firmware of the HP ENVY laptop don't get along well with Clonezilla, so that its unable to successfully serve an OS image to the computer.  Since the beginning of recorded history, this is the 157th computer the group has set-up, and the first dead-in-the-water failure. We've updated the kernel of the VM Clonezilla is running in. It bothers me a bit that the ENVY can see into the kernel of a VM, and gets unhappy, but nobody promissed me a rose-garden. Just another tricky day...

Very Best Regards!

Bill

[Bill_iv · Accepted solution]

Sadly, the correct answer is, "You can'tget there from here." Laptops at tbe very low end of the performance spectrum may come with "InsydeH2O" or other low-rent BIOS products, and simply lack a control to boot on power-up. They may not even know they've been powered-up.  Whether AC power is appled to the power adapter or not, they just sit there.

IF you want to turn it on, push the "power/reset" button.

Simply put, these are computers that require human touch to get started.

If you need automatic response to power on, or remote power cycle to get back to status quo ante, don't buy an "Envy".  A "ProBook", "EliteBook", or "Pavillion" are good laptop choices.  We haven't tried the Omen or Spectres yet.  We don't plan on trying ChromeBook or Stream unit. We have had a couple of the 2-in-ones tablet/laptop combos and not succeeded in power-on boot with them. The "all in one" works-in-a-display, like an Apple iMac, work fine for us.

Thie issue isn't directly corellated to processor maker, most AMD and Intel-based products have the better BIOS, which appears to be an HP creation. I don't think it corellates with single channel or dual channel memory.  Its about product name and capability.  Envy units don't have an unattended power up and boot capability.

Bill