Firmware upgrade frustrations

[subsix]

Paul,

Could it be that you're confusing two things here - a BIOS upgrade (as posted by Oscar) and an iLO 4 firmware upgrade (version 1.40 in your case)...

Best,

Peter

P.S.: Happy to hear that the iLO update worked for you...

[subsix]

@Jimmy,

Thanks for the info. I wasn't (fully) aware of this. Is that expected to work on arbitrary UN*X OS's or only on Linux?

Best,

Peter

[paulgear]

Hi Peter,

It seems quite likely that I'm confused.  I find the descriptions on all the downloads that HP offers for this system bewildering and unintuitive.

I work more with Dell & IBM servers than ProLiant (and probably will continue to, given HP's record with this noise issue and the firmware download rights debacle) - they typically offer a single download that upgrades everything.

So what are our options on non-supported Linux distros for upgrading to the BIOS that Oscar provided?

[subsix]

Paul,

Fully agree. That piecemeal is more than confusing (especially as I usually deal almost exclusively with Macs). Did you ever try SPP (Service Pack for ProLiant)? That seems even more complex... to me.

I must admit that I bought a second Microserver a few weeks ago (at a really good price). I felt that there weren't many options that come close to the feature set (let's disregard the noise for a moment) and the compact size of the Gen8.

In order to work around the noise issue we are currently using one MicroServer Gen8 with an HP H220 HBA. That way I was able to get fan speed down to 11%. Certainly not as silent as the Mac mini Server we used before but at least bearable. Key is that its firmware supports the "sea of sensors". Our machine runs SmartOS (Solaris derivative: ZFS, KVM, Zones,...) as a Hypervisor. That B120i "workaround" should work equally well for Debian, Ubuntu, FreeBSD... However, I didn't try.

So at least for us the H220 was the key thing to overcome the noise issue. Disadvantage is the added cost and power consumption. Advantages are the low(er) noise and SATA 6G on all four bays. Not sure whether the adapter would also allow hot plugging of the drives.

The second Microserver Gen 8 is used as a test platform - currently without the H220 but with Oscar's BIOS firmware and iLO 1.40. Fan speed at 19%. We have a H220 HBA on the shelf for that machine but we weren't able to get that machine down to the same low fan speed than the other one. Only difference is the HD types used (WD vs. HGST). It is unfortunate but there seem to be differences in what HD firmware can cope with HP's "sea of sensors". Linux supports the temperature sensors on all of these drives, wonder why HP is so picky... 

I still see the B120i as a significant design flaw of that machine - maybe together with that sensors mess. Well, no news for reader of this thread...

For BIOS firmware updates I booted from a disk that I plugged in temporarily. Works okay but is certainly far from convenient. Alternative would be to wait until Oscar's BIOS is included in the SPP iso. Not sure if it is already... @Jimmy, Oscar, do you know? 

Best,

Peter

[paulgear]

Hi Peter,

On Linux all AHCI controllers support hot plug. I'd be surprised if there isn't some support for it on Solaris.

Which download did you use to get the bootable image to upgrade the BIOS?

[paulgear]

The plot thickens.  I've managed to run a successful upgrade on my Microserver; unfortunately, the BIOS version on my system was exactly the same as the file I tried to flash it with.

Since the download site is no longer accessible, can anyone else confirm that their CPQJ0612.B69 is dated 2013-12-13 and is 4201836 bytes, with MD5 sum 23072e25907779ea292c943057159e27?

[Jimmy Vance]

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subsix wrote:

Thanks for the info. I wasn't (fully) aware of this. Is that expected to work on arbitrary UN*X OS's or only on Linux?

---

I'd expect it to work on any *NIX, but I generally only work with Linux. Occasionally I forget the syntax and have to poke around in the .scexe to refresh my memory

[ad-d]

Not sure if it's the latest version any more but I do have a copy of the CPQJ0612.B69 file taken from the HP site that has that date and an MD5 of 23072e25907779ea292c943057159e27

[Torsten.]

See

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/km/search#q=ILO%201.40&t=All&sort=relevancy&numberOfResults=25

BIOS 2013.11.09   21 Feb 2014

ILO 1.40

Get the windows download, extract it.

Linux versions and USB Key versions are also there.

Moderator Note: [Updated with new links]

[paulgear]

That verison and date were the ones that were already on my Microserver out of the factory.  And that was well before Oscar posted his experimental version.  I don't understand.