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PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI

  • 1.  PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted Oct 17, 2017 12:11 PM
      |   view attached

    PXE works great with legacy boot options, but when booting with BIOS set up for UEFI, it takes a crazy amount of time to PXE boot.  

    Attached is a screenshot showing attempted boot after 5 minutes at which point I had to give up and move on to something else.

    I'm on 8.0 HF6.  I see there are some DS related point fixes available for HF6 here but don't see anything like this mentioned.  Support suggest we don't get to 8.1 yet.

    Anyone have any ideas?  I've seen the slow boot with a VMware created image and a Dell XPS as well. 

     



  • 2.  RE: PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI

    Posted Oct 19, 2017 09:58 AM

    Sally,

    If the network card is truly booting uefi it could be that the winpe drivers need to be updated for better performance. I would look for a network driver and upload that to your pxe configuration and then test how fast/slow the process is.

    Please follow the link below for help on how to locate the correct network drivers for your WinPE/ Ghost Solution Suite install.

    Adding Custom Drivers For Winpe in Ghost Solution Suite 3.x 
    https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.HOWTO124400.html

    How To Add Drivers To Ghost Solution Suite
    https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.HOWTO124704.html



  • 3.  RE: PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted Oct 19, 2017 10:23 AM

    Thanks BrycenM.  We're using CMS, but I'm familiar with adding drivers.  I'm trying to use VMWare 12 Pro to create clean win10 base image.

    I found this but no resolution on Vmware support boards and this SCCM related post over on reddit. 

    Does it matter when you capture an image if the hardware (in this case the VM) is set up for legacy boot or UEFI? 



  • 4.  RE: PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI

    Posted Oct 19, 2017 11:52 AM

    Sally,

     

    It should not matter if the boot legacy or UEFI.. .however. If you create an image based on a legacy bios it will have an MBR partition table. If you create and image based on UEFI then it will have a GPT partition table. This will make things difficult if you are trying to deploy a UEFI based machine to a legacy machine and vice versa.



  • 5.  RE: PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted Oct 19, 2017 01:30 PM
      |   view attached

    @brycenM - I appreciate your response.  I have a ticket in as well, but the tech is out for a few days so it's helpful you've been respoding.

    Maybe it works differently if you're capturing the image in a VM?  I started fresh today with a new VM and built 1709 image using ISO from Microsoft.  I chose legacy BIOS during set up so that I wouldn't run into slow PXE issue. 

    I used created image task without issue & restored it to Dell e7250 setup for UEFI without issue.

    In disk management, it's reporting GPT is being used, see screenshot.  

    I guess my lesson learned is to use standard BIOS when capturing VM in VMware, but i don't understand how it's then restoring to UEFI booting Dell?



  • 6.  RE: PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI
    Best Answer

    Posted Oct 19, 2017 02:42 PM

    Sally,

    You are able to boot legacy pxe no problem, where the issues can arise is if you change the bios to legacy. Most machines do not have a true uefi pxe boot.. meaning the bios supports uefi but the networking cards do not. Your only choice in this circumstance is to boot legacy vlan. If you are creating an image from a machine with the bios set to uefi and deploying to a machine that has the bios set to uefi then you should be fine.

    I still believe the slow transfer issue has to do with drivers and that could be alleviated by adding the latest network drivers to your Winpe environment if that is the route you decide to take.



  • 7.  RE: PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted Dec 05, 2017 08:52 AM

    Removing the solution provided tag.

    I'm seeing the same behaviour when booting UEFI built VMs, the first boot.sdi PXE screen loads quickly, but then severe slowness when loading boot.wim (gave up after an hour).  Other searches on connect seem to indicate if it gets that far to loading the boot.wim, it's not a driver issue.  Another VM built with Legacy BIOS on same machine boots fine.

    Support had me try e1000 in place of e1000e driver on the VM itself, same result.

    I tried googling for e1000/e1000e updated drivers but can't find anything.  I tried uploading the VMware tools drivers into winPE, but the driver database didn't find anything newer than what I have.

    Anyone have ideas, would love to hear them.   I can't be the only one trying to PXE VM that was created on UEFI?



  • 8.  RE: PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI
    Best Answer

    Posted Dec 09, 2017 03:43 AM

    Hey Sally,

    Yes you are correct...the slow performance when downloading the WIM is not related to the WinPE Drivers.  This sequence happens before the PE ever loads so the drivers are not relevent at this stage in the process.  I have also noted slow download speeds in our environment but its usually accross the board - not just uefi or bios.  I can tell you that to a certain degree, for whatever reason...this is significantly slower than Microsoft WDS.  I am not sure what magic Microsoft is doing during the download of the WIM...but you can import a WIM created with GSS/SMP into WDS and boot to it in a fraction of the time it takes to download on GSS/SMP.

    I know thats not helpful...but on the GSS side, there is a value you can spike to assist with the download speed.  This value in GSS is labeled - "Enable larger packets for TFTP/MTFTP" out of box this value is set to 768 but can be increased to a maximum of 1456 to speed up the download.  I looked for a similar value in the SMP and could not find one...the only thing that looks close is under the following location:

    Settings > Deployment > Image Multicasting

    There you will find a Threshold value and a Speed Limit value.  I don't think that will help you but perhaps there exists a value in a config file tucked away somewhere that is similar to the one in GSS.  Again...its still horrible compared to the speed of WDS when using the same exact WIM.

    If this solves your issue, kindly mark this as a solution.  Thanks :)

     



  • 9.  RE: PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI

    Posted Jan 11, 2018 04:29 PM

    Hey Sally,

    Thanks for marking my response as a solution...what was the fix if you don't mind me asking?  Thanks :)



  • 10.  RE: PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted Jan 12, 2018 11:00 AM

    It wasn't fixed, for now I'm just not using UEFI on the vm when capturing the image.  A moderator marked it as a solution.  Sorry.  It was a good idea though, I appreciate your time, Joel.



  • 11.  RE: PXE image slow to load boot.wim when using UEFI

    Posted Jan 12, 2018 11:15 AM

    Hey Sally,

    Yeah sorry...just realized that after posting. Thanks again. :)