Thanks for the info! I discovered that there's some odd interaction between the 3COM NIC and the Compaq that always gets me to the LAN boot situation. There is no jumper on the NIC. I did discover that PXE is a LAN protocol that is a choice in the Master Boot Agent but it didn't give me a choice of not booting from the LAN. After some discussion with Compaq, I ended up installing a Belkin NIC (Realtec chip) and it boots correctly and works just fine. I've used these 3COM NICs in lots of computers (since I have the driver for it), never encountered this problem. I also discovered if I press "esc" during the splash screen (without the 3COM NIC), it boots right into the OS without the 1 minute wait. David Gillett wrote: > On 29 Jul 2006 at 8:59, Russ Cox wrote: > > >> I want to install a NIC temporarily so I can download updates. When I >> install a 3COM NIC, the computer tries to boot from the network and of >> course fails. Then it hangs and will not proceed to boot. There is no >> boot sequence choice in setup so I can't eliminate the network boot >> option. Any ideas? >> > > This isn't typical default behaviour. There may be a jumper on the NIC > that is enabling this option; it may be labelled "PXE". In that case, > removing the jumper would correct it. > > David Gillett > > The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering > our special coffee mugs and mouse pads > with the PCBUILD logo... at a great price!!! > http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml > > The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering our special coffee mugs and mouse pads with the PCBUILD logo... at a great price!!! http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml