On power-up the DEL key takes you into the BIOS. If you're prompted for a password the old Wyse password of Fireport still works on these modern thin clients.
The Wyse R90L has a Phoenix BIOS.
If you boot the R90L without a keyboard plugged in it stops with the error message of:
ERROR 0211: Keyboard Error Press <F1> to resume, <Del> to Setup
There does not appear to be any BIOS setting to disable this behaviour which precludes it being used headless. The BIOS version in my R90L reports as 1.0E-0T51.
My thanks to Rick for pointing this out.
However I subsequently got a Rx0L manufactured in 2011 that was running BIOS version 1.0H_SPC-0T51. The Advanced tab in this BIOS includes a Headless Boot option.
[July 2020] I have updated the BIOS in my other (1.5GHz) Rx0L to 1.0H and also in the earlier (1GHz) R00Ls. The various BIOS files are below. These are binary images extracted from R series thin clients using the Linux program flashrom.
I programmed them using Tiny Core 11.1 and flashrom. Command line:
sudo flashrom -p internal:laptop=this_is_not_a_laptop -c SST49LF080A -w Rx0L_1.0H_SPC-0T51.img
Replace -w filename by -r filename if you want to take a copy of your existing BIOS first. The flashrom binary for Tiny Core v11 is here.
Once I got into the BIOS the first lot of boot options I found listed were:
You select one and then use the '+' and '-' keys to move it up/down the list. I moved USB HDD up to the top of the list and saved the configuration. I then plugged in a pen drive, booted the system, and found the R90L still booted Windows XPe from the internal flash drive.
Going back into the BIOS I found that, with the Pen Drive plugged in, I'd now gained an extra boot device - USB KEY - so I moved this to the top of the list.
When I rebooted, the system ran Tiny Core from the pen drive.
I can't find anything in the BIOS about the SATA controller. In most conventional BIOSs you generally have the option to enable/disable it and/or make any SATA drives appear as IDE drives. In this case there is zilch.
I found that any drive plugged into the SATA connector adjacent to the IDE connector is ignored - both by the BIOS and any running operating system. If the SATA drive is connected to the SATA connector close to the rear panel it appears as IDE4.
For example, with the drive connected to CN3002 (adjacent to IDE connector) the BIOS boot screen just has the list as above. Having booted Tiny Core various parts of the system log look like this:
..... VMware PVSCSI driver - version 1.0.1.0-k pata_atiixp 0000:00:14.1: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16 pata_atiixp 0000:00:14.1: setting latency timer to 64 scsi0 : pata_atiixp scsi1 : pata_atiixp ata1: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0x8410 irq 14 ata2: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0x8418 irq 15 Fixed MDIO Bus: probed ..... ata1.00: CFA: 1GB ATA Flash Disk, AD B612J, max UDMA/66 ata1.00: 2001888 sectors, multi 0: LBA ata1.00: limited to UDMA/33 due to 40-wire cable ata1.00: configured for UDMA/33 scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA 1GB ATA Flash Di AD B PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0 sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 2001888 512-byte logical blocks: (1.02 GB/977 MiB) sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA sda: sda1 sda2 sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk .....
...with no mention of any SATA controller or my 500GB SATA drive.
If the SATA drive (a Samsung 500GB drive) is connected to the SATA connector (CN18) close to the rear panel it appears as IDE4.
The BIOS boot screen now has the entry:
..and when we boot Tiny Core Linux we now find the following in the system log file:
.... VMware PVSCSI driver - version 1.0.1.0-k ahci 0000:00:12.0: version 3.0 ahci 0000:00:12.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22 ahci 0000:00:12.0: controller can't do 64bit DMA, forcing 32bit ahci 0000:00:12.0: AHCI 0001.0100 32 slots 4 ports 3 Gbps 0xf impl SATA mode ahci 0000:00:12.0: flags: ncq sntf ilck led clo pmp pio ccc ahci 0000:00:12.0: setting latency timer to 64 scsi0 : ahci scsi1 : ahci scsi2 : ahci scsi3 : ahci ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xf8509000 port 0xf8509100 irq 22 ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xf8509000 port 0xf8509180 irq 22 ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xf8509000 port 0xf8509200 irq 22 ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xf8509000 port 0xf8509280 irq 22 pata_atiixp 0000:00:14.1: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16 pata_atiixp 0000:00:14.1: setting latency timer to 64 scsi4 : pata_atiixp scsi5 : pata_atiixp ata5: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0x8420 irq 14 ata6: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0x8428 irq 15 ..... ata5.00: CFA: 1GB ATA Flash Disk, AD B612J, max UDMA/66 ata5.00: 2001888 sectors, multi 0: LBA ata5.00: limited to UDMA/33 due to 40-wire cable ata5.00: configured for UDMA/33 ..... ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300) ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300) ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300) input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input2 usb 1-3: new high speed USB device number 2 using ehci_hcd ata1: softreset failed (device not ready) ata1: applying SB600 PMP SRST workaround and retrying Refined TSC clocksource calibration: 1499.987 MHz. Switching to clocksource tsc scsi6 : usb-storage 1-3:1.0 usb 1-5: new high speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300) ata1.00: ATA-7: SAMSUNG HD502IJ, 1AA01109, max UDMA7 ata1.00: 976773168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA ata1.00: SB600 AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd ata1.00: SB600 AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133 scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA SAMSUNG HD502IJ 1AA0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0 scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA 1GB ATA Flash Di AD B PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0 sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 2001888 512-byte logical blocks: (1.02 GB/977 MiB) sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 976773168 512-byte logical blocks: (500 GB/465 GiB) sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6 sda7 sda8 > sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk ......
...so it's appeared. I haven't yet tried connecting two SATA devices to see what happens.
The R90L is running Windows XP Embedded.