Summary of found troubles on Proliant server SE1102, DL180 G5, ML150 G5

[desigabri]

Hi all,

 I would like to summarize some issues and irregularity found on my SE1102 Proliant server that mounts very similar MB as the DL180 G5 and ML150 G5 at the point that you can exchange the Ibises;

The most common troubles that I share whit a lot of other people is the HIGH FAN SPEED

1) High fan speed.  Nobody wrote exactly which is the correct fan speed but anyway there are two problems related to the fans, the first is the

  - CONTINUOUS HIGH SPEED STATE that is due to a bios flash; The best solutions based from different testimonials is to downgrade the system bios to a previous version and Upgrade the BMC one before upgrading again the system bios.

 Always relating the testimonials you have to upgrade BMC almost at 3.11 version or latest (3.20)

 -  FAN SPEED SLOWS DOWN AFTER START UP,  BUT STUCKS AT 12.000-14.000 rmps; The answer from HP seem to be that the server is made for DATA CENTERS so its speed is correct for its use.  In my experience I found that the only possibility to rise down the fan speed is to "eliminate" the room temperature sensors" of the server. I guessed this at the best after having flashed the DL180 G5 system BIOS onto my SE1102 modding it to a newer system bios. This gave to me some improvements but also some worsening  :( :( :(

 Let me tell you some things about Alternative BIOS, may be you will be able to suggest to me the best way to solve my troubles.

With original SE1102 BIOS trying changing the  ROM ID by the switch doing that, it happens that at the next boot the, Bios recognize the selection and reconfigure the default CMOS image corresponding to your choice.

 - ROM ID SWITCH 1 at position OFF I get ROM ID=O32.The Bios reconfigure itself and does a reboot. At the next boot the server shuts down by itself because it finds a problem at FAN 4 so no test done with this setting.

- ROM ID SWITCH 1 at position ON: I get ROM ID=O31. The Bios reconfigure itself and does a reboot. At the next boot the server starts up with the lack of signal of two temperature sensors, a wrong low temperature of the PCI temperature sensor, and a wrong  temperature of the CPU1 temperature sensors (I can say that it is a bit lower then the other CPU sensors).

Flashing the DL180 G5 BIOS:

 - ROM ID SWITCH 1 at position OFF I get ROM ID=O26. The Bios reconfigure itself and does a reboot. At the next boot the server starts up and ALL THE TEMPERATURE SENSORS WORKS WELL!

- ROM ID SWITCH 1 at position ON: I get ROM ID=O25. The Bios reconfigure itself and does a reboot. At the next boot the server starts  with the lack of signal of two temperature sensors, a wrong low temperature of the PCI temperature sensor, and a wrong  temperature of the CPU1 temperature sensors (I can say that it is a bit lower then the other CPU sensors). This configuration gets the same results as the SE1102 bios ROM ID O25.

 Finally the correct BIOS in my opinion should be the DL180G one setted at ROM ID =O26. Unfortunately the DL180 G5 Bios doesn't support 24GB RAM in my configuration (4GBx6) and doesn't boot up. I have to remove 2 memory modules  to have 16GB of RAM and then Server Boots up. It is very annoying knowing that this problem is due to the bios and not to the hardware.

Comparing the firmwares regarding the features, I preferred to downgrade the bios back to the SE1102 one because I want to use 24MB RAM

Comparing the firmwares regarding the Bios options I can say that SE1102 BIOS has some more  options related to the power state of the CPUs, but less options on the Disk Controller configuration and the DL180 G5 with Rom ID O26 is the right one about the sensor reading

Comparing the firmware regarding the fan speed and generally about the sensors  you should choose among the SE1102  ROM ID O31 and the DL180 G5 ROMID O25 because they lack the PCI temperature sensor and just detaching the connector of the frontal temperature sensor you can slow down immediately the 2 couples of fans to 8k and 10k rpms.

So the trick is to remove the temperature sensors.

If I hadn't interested in having 24GB of RAM, then I would have chosen the DL180G5 bios going to the Mother Board and dessoldering the PCI temperature sensor to obtain fans speed at 8K and 10K rpms, but I want have 24GB RAM so I had to reflash the SE1102 bios and only detached the frontal temperature sensor (the PCI one isn't working so no need to dessoldering it. In this case only CPU1 sensors aren't working well and I need to look away to not becoming annoyed about that.

To flash DL180 G5 bios on the SE1102 I had to use "flashrom" free utility that is the only one I found that recognize the serial flash chip 25P16 using a decompressed bios image. Before flashing the new bios I did a DUMP of the original SE1102 bios so I have its full BIOS IMAGE (not the one you can flash with ROMPAQ utility)

Stay advised that if something goes wrong (yes it happened to me @@#!!@# !! ) you have to dessoldering the bios chip and reprogramming it with a right adapter and flashing utility. I had to do it because after the flash, the server didn't boot up due to the 24GB of RAM but I didn't know that this  was the problem :( :( :(

After that I tried swapping the memory module from the SE1102 BIOS to a DL180 G5 modded BIOS but I brick the proliant and I had to reprogramming again the serial flash chip (@@#!!@# !! ).

I would like to obtain a modded DL180 G5 bios to recognize the 24GB RAM in my configuration or anyone able to find were disable the sensor into the BIOS so you don't need to dessoldering the PCI temperature sensor. or anyone able to MOD the BIOS to change the starting fan CURVE speed the one that you can read is programmed on BMC at the startup

I hope this can help any one about these models (DL180 G5 and the ML150 G5 have exactly the same BIOS after decompressing and comparing them, not sure about the packaged version for ROMPAQ use.

ANYONE THAT CAN INVESTIGATE ABOUT THE WAY TO MOD THE BIOS?