6/25/2020

In the newest versions of IP100-series products with the latest Celeron J1900 motherboards, a BIOS issue has been found. For BIOS version A15 (and presumably later), if there is no monitor plugged into the rear, the frame will not boot up, or sometimes will boot up from a cold start (or power cycle), but not when restarted from Windows. So far, this has only been found to be an issue with frames loaded with Windows 10 IoT, and seems to be related to the BIOS settings differernces between Windows 10 and Windows 7 support. There are two common work-arounds for this issue:

• Install a dummy VGA monitor plug (also called "VGA Emulator")
• Configure BIOS to enable an LVDS display (a kind of LCD display used on laptops)

Each of these approaches is described below. The bottom line is that the BIOS expects/needs a display of one kind or the other to function.

Dummy VGA Monitor Plug

One can either make or buy this type of plug. If making your own, following the diagram shown below, where each of the gray rectangles is a 75 Ohm resistor.

One can also purchase these for a few bucks each. Search a shopping website with the term "VGA Emulator" to find some examples. The picture below shows one such example.

Configure BIOS for LVDS

The other approach is to tell BIOS that it has a LVDS type display. This is done as follows:

• Attach a monitor and keyboard to the unit and apply the 12V power to it.
• Press the F2 key immediately/repeatedly upon seeing anything flash onto the screen.
• This should bring up the BIOS Setup window. If you see a prompt to "Load Previous Values", then one too many F2 presses has happened. Simply arrow right to the "No" option and hit the [Enter] key to select it.
• Now, arrow left multiple times until the "Chipset" tab page is selected. 
• If not already highlighted, used the up/down arrows to highlight the "Output Panel Type" option, then press [Enter]. 
• In the the pop-up arrow up/down to the LVDS choice, if necessary, and press [Enter].

• Right arrow over to the Save & Exit screen
• Up/down-arrow to the “Save Changes and Reset” option and hit [Enter]
• When the Yes/No prompt appears, press the [Enter] key to accept the default Yes