Disable Keyboard and Monitor Check in Compaq Deskpro SFF

You might want to use a old Compaq as a server and you don’t want to have keyboard and monitor attached, however BIOS will stop booting when it detects no keyboard, this excellent article should fix the problem. I did not pay attention to this article first as my Compaq SFF Deskpro is not a server type machine and I did not expect there is this bios item “Network Server Mode” to enable. Basically the approach is:

1. Assign a power on password, this will give you the ‘Network Server Mode” in the “Password Options” under “Secuirty”， enable it.
2. Save, shutdown, remove keyboard and monitor, reboot.

My experience with those old Compaq is good, even P2 can be a good server. no problem installing Ubuntu 8.10 server, did not try desktop version.

In a HP Vectra P3, ubuntu 8.10 will display:

System Halted

without turning off the power.

Add this:

In /etc/modules add the following line to the end,
apm power_off=1

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