s2600GL BIOS Update problem

[RichPasty]

Hi All,

I have an Intel S2600GL system, which has a very old bios (0.1.03.0002)

SE5C600.86B.01.03.0002

06/20/2012 15:04:17

I have downloaded the latest EFI based updates, and attempted to update the bios, however i get an error:

Loading IPMI driver: .\ipmi.efi

BmcLibInitialize returned failed

  unknown exception

I found iflash32 for Windows PE, so tried that, but when trying to update, i get an error "reserved error" code 1029

I tried BIOS recovery mode, by moving the jumper, and placing the correct files onto USB drive, the server beeps twice, then nothing happens.

Server is working as-is, but i wanted to replace the current CPUs (2xE5-2620 v1) with 2 x E5-2630L V2, but server will not POST with these CPUs, as i beleive the BIOS needs to be updated to support the newer CPUs.

I have tried everything i can think of to flash the bios, without success.

Does anyone have a way to do it?

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello RichPasty,

Thank you for joining the community

Due to this product being discontinued, Intel Customer Service no longer supports inquiries for it, but perhaps fellow community members have the knowledge to jump in and help. You may also find the Discontinued Products website helpful to address your request. Thank you for understanding.

The following articles might be helpful:

BIOS Update for Intel® Server Boards

Intel® Servers BIOS/Firmware Update How-to Video

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[RichPasty]

So, to add insult to injury...

I bought a replacement motherboard from ebay, which is actually a S2600GZ, rather than the GL.

Attempting to update with the latest EFI based update, and I get exactly the same error.

This was before booting into any O/S, just the board on it’s own, with 1 cpu, and 4GB RAM.

Boot into EFI Shell, and execute startup.nsh

Luckily, the board was not expensive, and already has a newer bios than my original board, so does support the newer CPUs.
But it would be nice to bring it up to the latest version.

[RichPasty · Accepted solution]

I got it working, even on the old board...

For anyone who has this problem, the solution was quite simple... the instructions provided by Intel are wrong.

From their readme:

*************************************************************************************
Standard Update Procedure from the embedded EFI Shell
*************************************************************************************

- Unzip the contents of the update package and copy all files to a folder on a USB flash drive
- Insert the USB flash drive to any available USB port on the server system to be updated
- Boot the Server to the EFI shell. This can be accessed via the <F2> BIOS setup utility during POST.
- Run the command "map -r" in the EFI shell to mount a USB flash drive formatted to use the FAT32 file system
- Run the command "fs0:" to change folders to the USB flash drive. The USB flash drive
may also mount to fs1: depending on other installed devices. The number of "fs#" is
dependent on the result of command "map -r"
- Change folders to the folder storing the update package files
- Run the command "Startup.nsh" to start updating all the firmware and BIOS updates

If you ignore the bit about extracting to a folder on the USB stick, and move all files into the root of the USB flash drive, so that the startup.nsh is in the root along with ipmi.efi, etc.

then enter the built-in efi shell, let it automatically start the startup.nsh file.

BINGO! it works.

The HOURS i have wasted on trying different versions, trying to bios recovery, etc.

I wish the instructions were correct!