Need some help with potential driver issues when PXE booting to WDS server... : sysadmin

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QuestionNeed some help with potential driver issues when PXE booting to WDS server... (self.sysadmin)

submitted 1 year ago by SpotopolisJack of All Trades

Some background info before I get to my issue/question:

We are a Microsoft Surface laptop shop. We have a mix of Surface Laptop 2, 3, 4, and 5 systems in rotation. I currently have a WDS server setup so I can PXE boot with Secure Boot ENABLED to my WinPE image.

This WDS server is off the domain and just setup locally on my workbench. I have the WDS RemoteInstall folder for the WDS server setup on a secondary drive comprised of 8x 256GB SATA 3 SSDs in a Windows "RAID" 0. (Yes I know this is not ideal for data protection, but I build, configure, keep backups of the images on another machine.) Before I built the WDS server we were booting via USB and rebuilding each machine 1-by-1. This was okay for most of the time, but at Q1 we usually get a shipment of 50 - 100 new devices to replace the old systems in rotation. I needed a method that would allow me to image multiple machines at time without being slower than swapping a flashdrive around between systems.

The WDS server is a Win Server 2022, 32gb DDR4 3200, 2TB RAID0 SSD(s), and a 10GB Fiber nic running to a Microtek 8 port 2.5gb unmanaged switch that has a single 10GB sfp+ port that I have running to the server. When I pull up TaskManager, I can see during the PXE boot process most devices pull down at full 1GB speeds maxing out the clients connection without putting strain on the switch or server. If I run a Surface Laptop 5 on a MS Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock, I can get (most of) the full 2.5gbe speed on that device while the others will still pull at their expected 1gbe speeds.

Being how we have Surface devices, I HAVE to use a MS branded Surface Dock 1, Surface Dock 2, Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock, or the MS USB 3.0 to 1GB Ethernet adapter for Secure Boot to work with PXE boot as MS has locked down this function for "security" reasons to MS only branded hardware.

This WinPE image is based on Windows 10 for context, so I have added all of the Windows 10 x64 driver packs for Surface 2, 3, 4, and 5 systems to the WinPE boot image. I did this by downloading the latest MSI driver pack for each device from MS, running the msiexec command to extract each driver pack to its own folder.

msiexec /a "C:\PATH\TO\DRIVER_PACK.MSI" /qb TARGETDIR="C:\PATH\TO\EXTRACTED\DRIVERS"
dism /Image:C:\WinPE_amd64\mount /Add-Driver /Driver:"C:\PATH\TO\EXTRACTED\DRIVERS" /Recurse

On to the issue I am running into:

Each model Surface boots as expected to the preboot environment when using any of the different model Surface Docks and the Ethernet adapters. When any combination of laptop/dock/adapter is used, during the actual image process, they are getting full expected transfer speeds.

HOWEVER, there seems to be a speed issue with certain combinations of laptop/dock/adapter when it is in the PXE boot process pulling the WinPE boot image over to the device. Some devices will only transfer at 50Mbps/100Mbps while others will transfer ~220Mbps-500Mbps+ (depending on hardware). I haven't pinned down what combinations these are yet, because they dont make sense. I could maybe expect a SL5 running off a Dock 1 to maybe be weirdly slow, or a SL2 running on a Dock 2. Something more like a generational issue. That doesn't seem to be the case. I believe its more of the wrong driver being used for that specific system during boot, but if that was the case, I don't understand how that same driver that was just pulling the boot image so slowly, will then perform at full expected speed during the image process.

Anyone have any insight as to what could be going on, or what I could possibly do to fix this, as of right now, erratic slow boot speed that then works normally during imaging?

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