Extended POST and Boot Load Times on a Dell Precision Tower using an Add-in Network Card

Dell Precision Tower Extended POST and operating system load times with an add-in network card

People may experience extended Power-On Self-Test (POST) and Operating System loading times with their Dell Precision Tower. These start when adding a Network Interface Card (NIC) to the workstation. (Switching to an onboard Ethernet connection can improve the time taken for the desktop to POST.)

This issue affects the following desktops:

• Dell Precision 5820 Tower Workstation
• Dell Precision 7820 Tower Workstation
• Dell Precision 7920 Tower Workstation

These Precision Towers are validated and qualified with the following NICs:

• Intel i210 1 GbE PCIe Network Card
• Intel X550 10 GbE PCIe Network Card
• Intel i350 1 GbE PCIe Network Card
• Aquantia NBase T2 2.5/5GbE PCIe Network Card

Engineering confirms that the more Ethernet ports that must be initialized, the longer the POST and Boot cycle takes.

Dell Engineering investigated ways to shorten the load times with Intel, but this is the expected behavior of the hardware under these circumstances. There is no issue with the card, desktop, or operating system.

 The following steps can mitigate this slightly:

1. Ensure that the Local Area Network (LAN) cables are securely connected to the required ports.

2. Go into the desktops BIOS settings screens:

   1. Remove any Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) entries on the add-in NICs that are not required.

   2. Disable the Legacy Option ROMs if no other devices are relying on this setting.

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