CEC5 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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Question #406: The BIOS update process for your SBC products seems to be floppy based. But I don't have access to a floppy and/or a floppy drive. Is there an alternative way to update the BIOS?
Answer: For MPL systems with USB boot capability, please follow the steps below:
  1. Create a bootable FreeDOS USB stick (either manually or with a tool like "Rufus").
  2. Verify that the BIOS settings of your MPL SBC are correctly set up for USB booting. Check the corresponding BIOS manual for details.
  3. Verify that the freshly created USB stick boots on your MPL SBC. If it does not, go back to step 1.
  4. Start the MPL provided BIOS Update Image EXE file.
  5. In the program's main dialog, deselect the "Writing on Drive" and select the "File extration" checkbox. Adjust the "File extraction" path to a suitable place on your local hard drive.
  6. Copy all the extracted files onto the previously created USB stick. Make sure NOT to overwrite the existing "KERNEL.SYS" file on the USB stick!
  7. Boot your MPL SBC from the USB stick and follow the instructions on the screen.

Question #402: If I attach a SXGA (or larger) monitor to the CEC under Linux, there are some "randomly colored" patterns visible on the right and bottom side of the screen and only an XGA sized area of the screen is actually used for output. This only happens in graphic mode, text mode seems to be OK.
Answer: Although there is no LVDS interface connection available on the CEC[5|6|7] SBCs, the GMA500 driver unfortunately activates the interface inside the chipset, resulting in the destortion of the non-XGA area of the screen.

As a work-around, please add the following to your kernel command line: "video=LVDS-1:d"

Question #393: While installing [Win7|Win8], I encounter the following error message: 
Windows cannot be installed to this disk.
This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk.
Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menus."

I checked the BIOS settings and the hard disc controller is enabled but I still get the error above.

What's wrong?

Answer: Most probably you have a problem with your IDE/SATA port BIOS settings.
Please check the IDE or SATA port settings and make sure they match the actual hardware configuration.
The hard disk drive you plan to install Windows to should be listed during BIOS POST.

Question #386: I'm trying to install Windows XP on your SBC but it stops with a "Blue Screen" error code 0x7B. What's wrong?
Answer: One of most common pitfalls is the fact that the Window XP installation media is not supporting SATA controller in "AHCI" mode out-of-the-box. For such an installation to be successful, you need to load the correct OEM AHCI driver for the SATA controller in question during the Windows XP setup process from a floppy disk. Please check "Limited OEM driver support is available with F6 during Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 setup" for details.

The alternative is to install Windows XP with the SATA controller operating in "IDE" mode. For more info how to switch the SATA controller to "IDE" mode, please check the corresponding "System BIOS User Manual" for details.

Question #369: I'm having some troubles to get one or both of the serial lines to work. Whatever I tried, nothing is transmitted nor received on this interfaces.
Answer: Chances are that the serial port modules (SERIF) are not installed in your CEC. As written in the "Serial Connector(s)" chapter of the corresponding "CECx Technical Reference Manual", these modules are optional. If you did not order these modules preinstalled in the CEC, you can order them belatedly.

Question #361: Two USB ports of the CEC are not working if a Low- or Full-Speed USB device (like keyboard, mouse, floppy, ...) is connected. But any Hi-Speed USB device is working properly. What's wrong?
Answer: You are using a CECx-11, correct?
As written in the CEC User Manual", 2 out of the 7 USB ports support USB 2.0 only. For more details, please check the manual.

Question #360: The CEC seems to boot normally and works properly afterwards but there is nothing displayed on the screen.
Answer: Is an analog monitor connected to the CEC?
As written in the CEC User Manual", the CEC supports DVI-D only! Please check again using a digital monitor.

Question #372:
  • If QNX is booted with PnP enabled in the BIOS, starting of the Photon GUI fails with the following error message: "io-display is not running"
    If QNX is booted with PnP disabled, the Photon GUI works. What's wrong?

  • If QNX is booted with PnP enabled in the BIOS, QNX does recognize (according to the QNX "pci" tool) the ethernet controller(s), but the network does not work correctly.
    If QNX is booted with PnP disabled, network is working. What's wrong?
Answer: The PnP enumerator of QNX seems to handle PCI bridges with sub-type "PCI (4)" only, but completely ignoring sub-type "HOST (0)".

Add the following line (below the existing "device(pnpbios, ...)") to the "/etc/system/enum/devices/bridge" file:
 device(pnpbios, .type=$(PNPBIOS_TYPE_BRIDGE), .subtype=$(PNPBIOS_BRIDGE_HOST))
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