Unable to upgrade NIC drivers on 2 DL380s

[David Standish]

Performed the same upgrade on over 30 servers and I have two that are problematic. We were upgrading from 4.1.3.0 to 4.6.14.0 using cp009681.exe. These two servers both blue screened during the upgrade process and then would not boot (continued to reboot on startup). After performing a last known good, the two servers were back up. Upgrading again causes them to be incomplete - Says that the driver is installed, but is acting differently than the other servers.

In Device Manager, under Network adapters properties, I see an old Driver Version 4.1.3.0 and then if I click Driver Details, I see the new version 4.6.14.0 (10/16/2008). On the other servers, these are consistently the new driver.

I've tried to use this process suggested in another post - can't get past step 9. I've tried removing NCU, uninstalling the driver through Device Manager, and reinstalling, extracting the files and installing, etc...

1) Update the NIC FW

2) Download the latest driver for the NC373i and save it into a temporary folder for later use.

3) Download the latest NCU version and save it into a temporary folder for later use.

4) Uninstall NCU . How? Go to Control Panel - Network Conections - Right click on your network adapter/conection - Properties - Highlight HP Network Configuration Utility - Click Unistall

5) Go to the device manager and right click on the NIC device and select Uninstall

6) Go to Start > Programs > Accesories > System Tools > System Information.

7) On the left side click on the + sign to expand the menu > Click on the + sign to expand Network menu > click on adapter.

8) On the right page look for the HP NC31xx Fast Ethernet NIC Driver location. Copy the driver location and then go to the folder where the driver resides and manually delete it.

9) Reboot the server and stop windows driver installation. If it prompts for you to choose the new driver cancel all request and get into windows, once there install the driver from the .exe file that you downloaded.

10) Reboot the server. By now you should be able to use the NIC card.

11) Install the latest NCU.

12) Re-team (if being used)

Any suggestions on proceeding? I want to get this version of the drivers installed to keep these servers consistent with the others in our environment. Thanks.

- David

[cwallis]

you need to step up through a few minor versions before going to that version of driver

I had issues with it - not as bad as bluescreening.

If you find the 2 driver version between what you have and what you want to go to and try that it should work

[John_Curtiss]

i had the same issue. i think you have to update to 4.4 something before you can update to anything past 4.4.

[Sylvain Gelinas 2]

As a best practice, always update the Windows device drivers on a system before you update the firmware. Before attempting a firmware update, make sure that your server can successfully restart without encountering hardware problems.

[Robin Hotter]

Hey David,

I've had a similar problem when upgrading using the Proliant Service Packs on my Blade BL460c's.

I tried upgrading past PSPv8.15 to PSPv8.30 and the machine blue screened because of the NIC driver update.

I also tried manually updating the NC373i driver and NCU but then it jsut kept redetecting the cards and had two different driver vesions like you did.

What i got it down to was the version of C:\windows\system32\drivers\Storport.sys. My machine had v5.2.3790.3959.

This file has something to do with the way the NC373i HP Virtual bus device functions. After some searching I found this link to a newer Storport.sys file :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957910

In then end the steps i took that worked were:

1) Upgrade the NIC firmware
2) Install the newer storport.sys file from Microsoft.
3) Reboot
4) Run cp009681.exe
5) Then install the newer NIC driver and NCU (i did this via the Blade Online Firmware Bundle v1.60 - but you should be able to do it using the PSP install or manually).
6) Reboot and it worked for me.

I was also getting ASR's on some of my servers and this required and upgrade of the Smart Array E200 controller (again through the Blade Online Firmware Bundle v1.60) but i don't know if DL830's have this hardware/problem.

I hope this makes sense and helps in some way.
Cheers,
Rob