The latest CTP processor which is denoted by a model number ending in "-03" (i.e. CTP2008-AC-03, CTP2024-AC-03 and CTP2056-AC-03 (including the DC versions)) may be prevented from entering the BIOS menu during the boot process. This issue does not affect the CTP150 platform.
Normally, during a CTP reboot, a memory test is run and the phrase "restarting system" can be seen at the beginning of the boot process. At this point, you can start hitting the F2 key (or ESC-F2) rapidly and as the screen refreshes, the BIOS menu screen will appear (there is no prompt to enter BIOS on an 03 Processor). In the case of the affected 03 CTPs, you will see garbage characters. There may be many garbage characters, or only a few. If you do see garbage characters at this point, the screen will hang and the CTP will need to be power cycled to recover it.
Some CTP2000s with the newer '03' processors have shipped from the Juniper factory with an unsupported baud rate of 115.2K. The exact number of affected 03 processors is not known, but the correct and supported baud rate is 9600. Juniper is determining the root cause of this issue to prevent more affected CTPs from reaching the field.
Note: The inability to enter BIOS does not affect any other process during the boot process or while the CTP is operational. If your console Baud rate is set to 9600, you will see the normal boot up messages and you will be able to use the console keyboard normally to enter the CLI menu and configure/check the CTP if your Putty session is set to 9600 Baud.
If you do see garbage characters where you would normally enter the BIOS menu by hitting F2, do the following:
Select Putty as your console emulator (you may select others like hyperterm or SecureCRT, but settings may vary).
Set the baud rate on your emulator to 115.2K, with 8 data bits, no parity bit and 1 stop bits. Select none for flow control and emulation vt100+.
Reboot the CTP. After you see " restarting system ", press the F2 key rapidly (or alternately the ESC-F2 keys on some keyboards).
You will see "keycode:81 " appear in the very top left of the console window. Continue to hit F2 rapidly until you enter BIOS.
To set the baud rate to 9600, right arrow over to the 'advanced' section. Then arrow down to 'console redirection'. You will see the following screen:
Arrow down to the Baud rate setting and change it to 9600 as shown in the next screen:
Press F4 to save and exit. Then press enter if 'yes' is highlighted to save your settings (you may have to press enter multiple times). The CTP will proceed to boot up.
Now set the Baud rate to 9600 in your Putty session.
Note: A Windows10 laptop was used to verify these steps with the Putty terminal emulator program.