Unable to Update firmware on BL685c G5 with more than 64GB RAM

[edb_1]

Hi,

We've been struggling with trying to update the firmware on these blades for a day or so now and it is driving me mad. Basically these are supposed to be our new VMWare V3.5i hosts. However they have been consistently purple screening. We are trying to update the firmware from 8.1 to 8.2 and are having some difficulties. I have tried two methods

I found mention of using the large mem switch at the "BOOT:" prompt. However when booting using the disk ISO with the virtual CD Applet attached this option does not appear. Once the CD has primarily loaded we just get a blank screen. We flashed one of the servers by taking 1/2 the memory out. But this isn't really acceptable when the blades are offsite.

The second method I have tried is as follows. I used the HP USB Key formatting tool to create the bootable USB key from the CD, and this does allow me to get to "BOOT:" prompt and to type largemem at the prompt. This then tries to load the Linux Kernel and then promptly fails close to the end of Kernel Loading and reboots the machine. If i use the default option at boot. the Kernel loads fully then displays "DONE" for about 30 seconds and reboots the machine. Again without doing anything.

My Question is what am i doing wrong!!!????

[sterls27]

What patch version of ESX are you installing? I know there are MAJOR issues with Update 2. From VMware:

An issue has been discovered by many VMware customers and partners with ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 where Virtual Machines fail to power on or VMotion successfully. This problem began to occur on August 12, 2008 for customers that had upgraded to ESX 3.5 Update 2. The problem is caused by a build timeout that was mistakenly left enabled for the release build.

What disk ISO are you booting from? HP firmware CD or the ESX install CD? Have you tried booting from the firmware CD and flashing the firmware from there?

[edb_1]

Know all about update 2 issues.

We are using the ESX V 3.5i - on USB keys so the blades are running with no Hard Drives.

I was using the firmware CD ISO to try and update the firmware, this is failing.

[sterls27]

What are your firmware revisions currently? BIOS revision?