What’s interrupting my laptop’s boot ?
When I switch on my Q Windows 10 laptop, I see a warning headed ‘EFI PXE’ that tells me boot has failed. If I then click OK, the laptop boots up and operates without any trouble. However, I’m worried this minor inconvenience may eventually become a major problem. Any advice would be appreciated.
Shay O’gorman
These messages relate to the A Preboot execution Environment, or PXE (presumably because the acronym PEE was considered inappropriate). They are telling you that your laptop is trying to boot from a network card or other networked device and is failing. There’s nothing to worry about, because the laptop simply boots from your hard drive instead, but we presume you would rather not see these messages.
We can’t say how or why this has happened, but you can change the boot method using options within the UEFI (hence the ‘EFI’ part of the message) – or BIOS, as many traditionalists still like to call it. How you access the UEFI varies depending on your particular computer, but it typically involves tapping a key such as F2 or Delete (Del) just after switching on. Alternatively, you can access the UEFI from Windows 10. First, click Start followed by the Settings cog, then ‘Update & Security’ followed by Recovery. Next, under ‘Advanced startup’, click ‘Restart now’ (see screenshot) followed by Troubleshoot. Click ‘Advanced options’, then UEFI Firmware Settings. Click ‘Restart’ to finish.
Every UEFI is different, but almost all of them use the cursor (arrow) keys and
Enter to navigate and select options. Look for a page headed Boot (or similar) and, within that, an option headed PXE (or similar). Either set this to Disabled or use the cursor keys to move it down the Boot Order list so it’s below the SSD, hard drive and USB boot options. Finally, press Escape (Esc) to exit the UEFI, then select Yes to save the changes.