A boot menu is provided for manual setting of serial port parameters. A serial console mode menu allows an operator to set serial port parameter values. After the user selects the serial port parameters, when the controller continues with the boot process, the serial port is initialized with the newly selected parameters. A mechanism is also provided for manual setting of serial port parameters through an administrative management window at the host. In addition, an adaptive baud rate negotiation mechanism using the Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) registers in the serial port is provided. The adaptive baud rate negotiation is based on the return characters received from a break character from the serial console. The mechanism uses a look-up table for the baud rate versus the bit pattern that is received. The mechanism then sets the baud rate based on the look-up table values.