PIP8 Frequently Asked Questions

PDF Manuals, Data Sheets, and Press Releases can be found in the MPL Documentation area of this homepage.

Question #325: How can I reset the BIOS settings to factory defaults?
Answer: There is a special menu entry in the BIOS setup screen, which will reset all BIOS settings to their factory defaults.
If entering the BIOS setup screen is not possible, the recommended way is to switch off the CMOS backup power (either by removing the CMOS battery completely from its holder or by using the corresponding DIP switch as described in the product "User Manual"). That way, the BIOS settings are gone and the default ones are loaded at next system boot. After the system has booted successfully, don't forget to connect/switch on the CMOS backup power again.

Question #247: My MPL SBC does not [boot|start] up. What can I do?
Answer: First of all, what precisely is meant by "does not [boot|start] up"?

Is the system not powering up at all or is there some reaction / output from the BIOS/bootloader, but no operating system is loaded or started?

If it is the former, please do the following:
  • check the status indicators (LEDs) if any.
  • press the power button if available.
  • check the power supply, cabling and fuse.
If it is the latter, please do the following:
  • try to boot the system from a known good bootable media (CD/DVD, USB, network, ...).
  • check the integrity and status of the default boot media. Replace the boot media if necessary.
  • if the software and/or hardware has been changed recently, retract the change(s).
  • recover the system from a backup.

Please note that the above is just a rough list of things to check and try. Please use the corresponding manual for detailed information and precise instructions for a particular MPL product.

Question #248: The RESET LED is blinking. What's wrong?
Answer: This means that the internal power supply of the SBC has detected an overload or even short-circuit condition on one of its power rails.

Please follow the steps below:
  • Disconnect the power, wait 10 seconds, then reconnect the power again.
  • If this doesn't help, disconnect the power, remove all cables and/or add-on cards (especially the ones which may have been recently installed or changed) except the power cord and reconnect the power again.
  • If there is no blinking RESET LED, try to isolate the culprit by reconnecting / reinstalling all the previously disconnected / removed items one after the other.
  • If the problem persists, the system needs most probably to be returned to MPL for a detailed analysis.

Question #351: Since I updated to Linux Kernel 2.6.30 or higher, all I2C peripherals (like temperature sensors or EEPROM) are not working any longer. With an older kernel, everything is working fine.
Answer: Is there a message similar to:
  • "ACPI: I/O resource ... conflicts with ACPI region SMB0"
  • "ACPI Warning: SystemIO range ... conflicts with OpRegion ... (\_SB.PCI0.SBUS.SMBI) "
 present in the kernel log?

If yes, please add "acpi_enforce_resources=lax" to the kernel command line.

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 #381:
  • Does the PIP10 / MIP10 platform support Win7?
  • Where do I find a Win7 graphics driver for my PIP10 / MIP10 based SBC?
Answer: Most of the PIP10 / MIP10 hardware is supported by Win7 out-of-the-box. One of the exceptions is the graphics part for which Intel does not provide a full-featured WDDM driver as documented here: Running Windows 7 on older Intel graphics products

Depending on the actual graphics requirements of your application, the use of the "Standard-VGA" driver of Win7 or the old Intel XPDM driver for WinXP may be a possible option.

If there is a need for graphics to be fully supported by Win7, the upgrade path, depending on your other system requirements (like PC/104 or IDE), would be a member of the PIP20 or PIP30 family.

Question #313: My PIP does not start up when power is applied. I checked the input voltage and the fuse inside the PIP, both are OK. The only system activity is a yellow lit power indicator LED.
Answer: If the PIP is in the so-called "Power Button Override" mode (for example by previously pressing the power button for longer than 4 seconds), the system will not start up automatically next time power is applied but stay in "soft-off" (S5). The "Power Button" has to be used to wake up the system again. So either press the power button (if one is installed) or use a short piece of wire to do a short circuit between pin 2 and pin 4 of the external power connector / power button connector depending on your actual PIP model. As an alternative, clearing the CMOS RAM will also help. For more information, please check the "Power Up Behaviour" chapter of the corresponding "PIP User Manual / PIP Technical Reference Manual".

Question #291: I would like to "communicate" with a PC104 card installed on a MPL SBC, but it does not work.
Answer: First, please check what ISA resources (MEM, IO, IRQ) the PC104 card supports and/or uses at the moment. Read the "BIOS User's Manual" carefully and use the information therein about available ISA resources on the system to figure out a conflict free set of values for the various ISA resources. Make the necessary adjustments to the card configuration and / or the BIOS settings. The "BIOS User's Manual" suitable for your MPL SBC can be downloaded from the "Documentation area on the MPL homepage".

Question #272: What is delivered with the PIP?
Answer: There are several differently equipped base versions available. Additionally, you can choose the amount of DRAM, the type of mass storage (Hard / Flash disk) etc. according to your requirements. Please see the "PIP Options" entry in our Homepage for further information or contact one of our distributors for assitance.

Question #143: How many PC/104 modules can be installed inside the PIP?
Enclosure Height [mm] PC/104 only slots PC/104 or PC/104-Plus slots PCI slots
Standard PIP 62 - 1 -
PIP80 78 - 2 -
PIP83 82.5 1 2 -
PIPPCI-1 62 - - 1
PIPPCI-2 82.5 - 1 2
PIPPCI-3 82.5 1 1 2
PIPPCI-4 120 2 1 4
PIPPCI-5 120 4 1 4
PIPPCI-L1 120 - 2 1
PIPPCI-L2 120 - - 2
PIP104PLUS-1 120 2 4 -

Question #290: My MPL SBC does not boot from CD-ROM. What I am doing wrong?
Answer: First, please verify that the hardware (SBC, drive, cables) is in working condition and the CD/DVD you are trying to boot from is really bootable. If the problem still persists, then most probably some BIOS settings are not correct. Please read the corresponding chapter(s) in the "BIOS User's Manual" carefully and make the necessary adjustments. The "BIOS User's Manual" suitable for your MPL SBC can be downloaded from the "Documentation area on the MPL homepage".

Question #345: I'm having trouble to get an USB device to work with one of your SBC. Either the USB device is not working reliable (or not at all) or the MPL SBC is even being reset if I insert the plug into the USB port or if the device is activated. The same USB device works without problem if I connect it to my laptop/desktop.
Answer: Is the USB device powered from the USB port only (no external power supply is being used)? If yes, your USB device most probably needs more power than it is allowed to do. The USB standard specifies that an USB device must not consume more than 500mA for USB2.0 / 900mA for USB3.0 (even not more than 100mA before being successfully initialized). For all USB peripherals with higher power requirements than the values mentioned above, the use of an external power supply is mandatory.
So please make sure that you use an external power supply or try to find another, standard conforming USB device.

Please note that the use of an "Y" shaped USB cable to "steal" power from a second, unused USB port is NOT a solution!

Question #350: Since I updated to Linux Kernel 2.6.29 or higher, the on-board ethernet is not working any longer. The correct driver is loaded and there are no error messages, but no packets are received or transmitted.
Answer: Is there a message in the kernel log about "boot interrupt" being disabled? If yes, please add "pci=noioapicquirk" to the kernel command line. On some kernels/distributions, "pci=noioapicreroute" may work as well. Alternatively, you can disable the "CONFIG_X86_REROUTE_FOR_BROKEN_BOOT_IRQS" compile time option and recompile the kernel.

Question #341: I am using one of your SBC and try to run an application on a RTOS, but I am facing some strange problems like missed hardware interrupts, increased variance of interrupt latency, ... . Is the SBC faulty?
Answer: Chances are that you are facing a problem with "System Management Mode (SMM)".
If you wish to use a RTOS or an application with some (hard) real time constrains, it is recommended to disable SMM (or one of the features depending on SMM) in the BIOS setup.
For more information about SMM, please check the corresponding chapter in the "BIOS Users Manual" for your MPL product.

Question #336: I'm using Linux and after a (mostly short) random period of time, the on-board ethernet port stops working. In the kernel log, there is a message about "irq 9: nobody cared". How can I fix this?
Answer: Is ACPI activated in the BIOS? If yes, is ACPI also active under Linux? Please check the ACPI related messages in the kernel log ("dmesg | fgrep -i acpi").
  • If ACPI support is completely missing in the kernel, either use an ACPI enabled kernel or disable ACPI in the BIOS.
  • If ACPI is supported by the kernel, but disabled (for whatever reason), adding "acpi=force" to the kernel command line may help. As an alternative, you may try to disable ACPI in the BIOS, but this is not recommended.

Question #331: I have a problem while receiving data from some external device through the serial line(s) of your SBC. Everything works flawless at slow baud rates but if I switch to a faster baud rate, the data received becomes corrupt. And it gets even worse the higher the baud rate is.
Answer: First, please check that your cabling is correct and within specification. If the cabling is correct, chances are that you are facing an UART "Overrun Error" problem.
Please try the following points:
  1. Make sure that the Rx FIFO is enabled by the SW driver.
  2. Reduce the Rx FIFO trigger level.
  3. Disable "USB Mass Storage" support in the BIOS. Please check the corresponding BIOS manual for details.
  4. Disable "System Management Mode (SMM)" in the BIOS. Please check the corresponding BIOS manual for details.
  5. Reduce the baud rate.

Question #329: I have attached a PC/104 or PC/104-Plus card to the [PIP | MIP] and I am sure that the card is configured correctly both from the hardware and the software side. Nevertheless the card does not work as expected, but shows erratic behaviour.
Answer: Does the card need +12V, -12V or -5V from the PC104/PC104-Plus bus? If the answer is yes, chances are that the I/O drivers and/or some A/D or D/A circuitry are not properly powered.
By default the [PIP | MIP] does NOT provide the voltages mentioned above on the PC/104 or PC/104-Plus bus.
Please check the corresponding "User Manual" and/or "Technical Reference Manual" for details.

Question #326: Under Linux, serial port 1 and serial port 3 work as expected, but serial port 2 and serial port 4 seem to use a wrong baudrate. If I test it under Windows for example, all four serial ports work correctly.
Answer: The input clock of the DUART chip, which is responsible for Serial 2 and Serial 4, is not ~1.8MHz, but ~7.3MHz (4x). This difference is compensated by an additional input clock divider inside the DUART chip. Unfortunately the Linux serial driver is reprogramming this divider to its default value.
Please use the "setserial" tool to set the correct input clock. Something like "setserial /dev/ttySx baud_base 460800" should do it.

Please note that the above applies to the following PIP hardware versions only:
  • PIP7-11, PIP8-11, PIP9-11, PIP10-1, PIP10-2, PIP10-11 if PCB version A or B is used
  • PIP9-1E, PIP10-1E, PIP11-1E
  • all customer-specific products and Panel-PIP systems based on one of the hardware platforms mentioned above
All other versions of the PIP hardware use the same input clock for all 4 on-board serial lines.

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))

Question #328: I'm trying to install [Windows NT | Windows 2K | Windows XP] on a CF card, but the installation fails or the OS does not work as expected. Does the PIP/MIP/IDE2CF not support this application?
Answer: Please make sure that you use a CF card which is configured to report itself as "fixed disk" device to the host system.
Basically there are two "different kind" of CF cards. Most CF cards for the "consumer market" report themselves as "removable" devices, while CF cards for the "industrial market" are normally configured to report a "fixed disk" device.
Although a successful installation of [Windows NT | Windows 2K | Windows XP] is theoretically possible on both kind of CF cards, there may be some tricky problems when using a "removable" CF card.
Our recommendation is to use "fixed disk" CF cards for this purpose.

Question #315: What operating system is installed on the PIP8?
Answer: If you did not order a specific OS with your PIP8, we normally installl FreeDOS so you can start it up right away. A list of operating systems available for the PIP8 can be found in the PIP8 Software Installations section of the PIP Product description. Other operating systems may be available upon request.

Question #312: The BIOS POST screen is not displayed after the system is powered. All I get is a blinking cursor in the upper, left corner of the screen, but nothing more. There is also no reaction to keyboard input.
Answer: Most probably, "Console Redirection" is activated in the BIOS Setup. Please check the corresponding chapter in the "BIOS User's Manual" for your MPL product, which is downloadable from the Documentation area on the MPL homepage.

Question #310: I'm having some troubles to get Serial 2 and/or Serial 4 to work. Whatever I tried, nothing is transmitted nor received on this interfaces. On the other hand, Serial 1 and Serial 3 are working flawlessly.
Answer: Chances are that the serial port modules (SERIF) for Serial 2 and/or Serial 4 are not installed in your PIP. As written in the "Serial-2 and Serial-4 Connector" chapter of the corresponding "PIP Technical Reference Manual", these modules are optional. If you did not order these modules preinstalled in the PIP, you can order them belatedly.

Question #302: After a change to some BIOS settings or a BIOS update, my Windows [200x | XP] installation does not work any longer. The system hangs or resets during startup.
Answer: Please check the ACPI setting in the BIOS setup and make sure the setting is the same as at the time the OS was installed. Once Windows [200x | XP] is installed with ACPI support enabled, it will normally no longer work on a non-ACPI system.

Question #296: I'm trying to install Windows 2000 / Windows 2003 by USB CDROM on a PIP, but after a while the installation process stops with an "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" blue screen.
Answer: This is a known problem with Windows 2000 / Windows 2003. Please take a look at MS Knowledge Base Article 883114 for more information.

Question #294: After installing Windows on the PIP, the device manager shows two COM2 ports and two COM4 ports, each using identical I/O addresses and Interrupts, resulting in a device conflict.
Answer: Please uninstall both COM2 ports and both COM4 ports in the device manager and reboot Windows. COM2 and COM4 will be properly detected and installed upon reboot.

Question #286: After installing Windows on my [PIP | MIP], I get no video output anymore. After the startup screen is shown, the monitor gets blank.
Answer: The [PIP | MIP] SBC with DVI interface support various display combinations. If the type of display (analog, digital) connected to the DVI-I interface changes between consecutive Windows boots, the graphics driver does not necessarily detect the new display device as it still tries to use the last known working combination. This can result in a blank screen after the graphics driver has been loaded in Windows.
In this case, try and use one of the following hot key combinations (depending on the display device) to get a display output:
Monitor Type Connection Key combination
Analog Monitor DVI-I <CTRL><ALT><F1>
Digital Monitor DVI-I <CTRL><ALT><F4>
LVDS Panel Internally <CTRL><ALT><F3>

Please also note that the Intel Graphics Driver Control Applet has to be running for the hot keys to work!

Question #323: What operating system runs on the PIP8?
Answer: So far, we have tested DOS, Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Embedded and various Linux Distributions. All other OS that will run on a standard PC should normally also work on the PIP8 as well as it is 100% PC/AT compatible.

Question #320: How many PC/104-Plus cards can I use on a PIP8?
Answer: Without using one of the PIPPCI Extensions, up to four bus master capable PC/104-Plus slots can be used on a PIP8.

Question #297: What's the MTBF of your PIP products?
Answer: Based on the experience of the past few years, the typical MTBF is above 100'000 hours.

Question #146: Does the IDE Flash Disk/Module require any special drivers?
Answer: No, the IDE Flash is seen by the OS like a standard IDE hard disk.

Question #137: Is the PIP board available without the housing?
Answer: Yes, all PIP boards are available without the housing. Compared to equivalent boards like Little board or similar, the PIP still has the big advantage of the standard connectors. Wiring costs a fortune!

Question #252: What type of power supply connector is used for the PIP?
Answer: All PIPs will be delivered with a power connector. If you need additional connectors, MPL AG will supply them as well upon request. If you insist on buying them yourself or if you need technical information, here are the purchase details:
ManufacturerPhoenix Contact
Order Number1827729
TypeMC 1,5/ 4-STF-3,81
Wire gauge diameter1.5 mm2
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