S2600WFT (R1304WFTYS) unable to install ESXi - nic not found

[MickG]

Have a new R1304WFTYS system. I've updated BIOS packages from factory install to current 02.01.0014. Have 64GB memory and two 4108 processors. All seems well but trying to install ESXi 6.7u3 and/or 7.0u3c reports no NICs found.  Since I've no experience with the S2600WFT, I don't even know if these VMWARE sourced ESXi versions should find the NIC or if I have a system issue. I've tried EFI and legacy setting with no change. Only thing I see that seems weird is that the "NIC Configuration BIOS setting page shows nothing - no idea if that good or bad.

Any pointers here - should these ESXi versions find the S2600WFT NICs? That would at least get me pointed in the right direction.

-mick

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello MickG,

Thank you for joining the Intel community

This is normal behaviour, the Intel Ethernet Server Adapter i350-T4V2 does not have ROM Option, therefore, it is initialized or inventoried only when the Operatign System starts, but not initialized or inventoried by the BIOS.

You can try to manually upload the driver after the OS is installed using the following driver package:

Intel® Ethernet Adapter Complete Driver Pack

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[MickG]

Hi Jose,

I do not have any extra cards installed in my R1304WFTYS system. The motherboard on board NIC is a X557-AT2 (2 port 10GbE) according to the S2600WFT documentation. And so its a catch 22 - the VMWare ESXI OS software will not install until it finds a NIC card so there is no "after the OS is installed" to deal with.

-mick

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello MickG,

Thank you for the clarification. Clould you please attach an image from the BIOS LAN interfaces just to confirm nothing is showing up and try to exgage our engineering team? I will wait for the update.

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[MickG]

Hi Jose - really do appreciate your help with this. I've attached 4 pics. 

1) The error screen I get from loading ESXi just prior to where it should offer to install. It fails to find any MAC address and then will report no NICs found with the only option from that point being ESXi prompting to reboot.

2) A screen shot of the BIOS start showing various versions.

3) A shot of the BIOS "NIC Configuration" screen - blank as I mentioned.

4) A pic of NIC Port #1 showing a valid ethernet physical connection with its LEDs.

I should note that the BMC port is working fine. I am able connect and login just fine.

-mick

 

  

 

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello MickG,

Thank you for the quick reply. Let me elevate your question to our engineering team. I will let you know as soon as I get updates.

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello MickG,

Thank you very much for your patience. Please take a look at the following recommendations/actions:

• Please keep in ming that VMware ESXi OS has as a mandatory installation requirement the presence of a minimum of one physical NIC installed in the server.
• Please run the Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Update Utility for Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X722 Series for Intel® Server Board S2600WF (WFT/WFQ/WF0) Family via EFI.
• Try to make a loopback test between one of the NICs ethernet ports and one endpoint device (e.g. laptop), create a little LAN network between them on the same subnet, and test the ports with a long ping request to check if the ports are receiving and echoing ICMP packets to confirm functionality.

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[MickG]

1) The mandatory requirement of one NIC is what is preventing me from installing ESXi

2) The S2600WFT board does not have X722 NICs.  It has embedded X557-AT2 which does not support NVM updates.

3) That would require IP addresses be assigned to the NICs which, due to not being able to load ESXI makes that impossible. - see point 1.

-mick

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello MickG,

According to the documentation, the S2600WFT has a embedded X722 NIC. The X527-AT2 comes on the S2600WFT(R) only. Could you confirm what exact system model do you have?

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/server-products/server-boards/S2600WF_TPS.pdf#page=27

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[MickG]

I have the S2600WFT - so clearly that's one mistake I was making.

I downloaded the X722 update tool and it reports no devices found - see pic.

?

-mick

 

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello MickG,

Thank you very much for the extra details. it seems like an actual hardware failure is possible. Let me elevate this issue one more time. I will get back to you soon.

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[MickG]

Running out of ideas, I reset the BIOS back to factory default and tried an install of Windows 2016. I then installed the chipset package:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/19022

This confirmed that even Windows does not find any NICs - ie no network devices nor any "unknown" devices.

And I'm still very unclear about the NIC type on my board. The documentation:

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/server-products/server-boards/S2600WF_TPS.pdf

Covers the board S2600WFT (which I have) AND the revised board S2600WFTR which "only" added the optane option. The documentation's reference to S2600WFT(R) - with the R in parens - seems to indicate a reference to both S2600WFT and S2600WFTR (Page 15) . And so section 6.4.2 (page 78) does note the NIC ports being X557-AT2.

In any event, I keep thinking I'm missing something or doing something dumb....

-mick

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello MickG,

Please try a re-flash of the latest version of the board BIOS firmware package Intel® Server Board S2600WF Family BIOS and Firmware Update Package for UEFI

If after applying it the NIC still not show up to the BIOS please let us know and we will proceed with the RMA for the server board.

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[MickG]

I downloaded the BIOS update from your link and it went through the updating of everything just fine. Restarted the server and retried the X722 NVM update - no devices found. Booted my Windows 2016 system, no NICs.

I will restate that this is a brand new server - factory box. On power up, it warned me that it had "factory BIOS loaded" wanting me to update the BIOS. Which is what I did stepping through all the versions as required. Should I have done any nvm update on the NIC during this process? The reason I'm concerned is that I had planned to purchase another exact same server for redundancy as I am replacing two old Intel servers. If I've done something wrong, I don't want to repeat it with the next one. Right now I don't see what I could have done wrong. In building Intel servers for many years I've never had something like this occur.

-mick

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello MickG,

Thank you for your feedback. I will send you a private message to setup the RMA details.

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios