BL460C - PXE option not showing up

[Simon Lyall]

I have some BL460C blades which I am attempting to reinstall via PXE.

The problem is that when I go into the bios and enable PXE on nic0 (built in broadcom BCM3708S)and then reboot it still doesn't show up as a valid boot option ( either on boot options menu or via F12 option being presented).

I have 4 blades I am working on and 3 do this but another works correctly. I can see no obvious difference between them ( the working and another have the same BIOs version, the other two something different).

The other stange thing I notice on the non-working ones is that towards the end of the BIOs boot they don't mentioned the Broadcom ethernet while the working ones does.

AFAIK the actual Nics work okay since they were running just a week okay,

Any pointers would be appreciated.

[Cederberg · Accepted solution]

Hi..

Have seen this problem on our bl465 also. The problem is when you make a change in bios boot order it doesn't make a change to the IPL order.

I have fixed this by restarting the server a few times. you can also try to change the order again and save it again. If that doesn't work do a cold boot.

[Simon Lyall]

Thankyou. That seems to be it.

I did resets and cold resets a few times which didn't do it. Even reset everything to default. However this works:

1. Go into setup and make sure the Nic has PXE enabled
2. F10 exit setup
3. Cold Shutdown the blade
4. Reset ilo2 ( System Status -> Diagnostics -> reset )
5. Log back into ilo (and restart the console)
6. Restart the machine.
7. It will now show the Broadcom ethernet message on boot and says something like "boot settings restored to default"

[Gordon Leonard]

Re-install.

Go into the system BIOS and do a system erase (erase everything). This should make the server go into PXE more because you don't have a boot record on your hard-drive.

[Simon Lyall]

The procedure I listed seems to work on all the boxes I tried.