Dell C6100 - anyone brick a board yet?

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jmck

Member
Apr 4, 2013
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I had the AMI branded IPMI as well until I updated to 1.29. It looks like this now.

 

RimBlock

Active Member
Sep 18, 2011
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Singapore
Well it looks like I am pretty close.

The server I sold has been returned for a BMC / Bios update.

3 nodes seem to be fine and updated pretty easily.

The 4th node has no video but the BMC works. I cannot get in maintenance mode though as it just tells me it is already in maintenance mode (but doesn't give me the option to upload a file).

On the set of, what I presume is, debug lights in the back corner below the PCIe x16 slot I get a c-t-c-b-c on both rows where c=center, t=top and b=bottom led.

The system info is
System Power Status : On
Firmware Revision : 01.05.28014
AuxFirmwareRevision : 28014
Build Time : Nov 10 2009 17:21:07
The BMC software is Megarac and not Dell branded.

Any ideas ?.
 

Smalldog

Member
Mar 18, 2013
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Goodyear, AZ
RimBlock- I received a C6100 that had BIOS 1.04 if I remember right, and I tried to update the BMC through the BMC, and when I went into maintenance mode, it bombed when I uploaded the file, and when I went back and tried again, it said it was already in maintenance mode.

Long story short, I ended up booting off a USB stick, and updating it that way. Not having video could be a problem, unless you can do the console redirection from the BMC, in which case it should be a snap to update by booting off the USB drive.

I think I might still need to update 1 or 2 more nodes in that box, so if I can get around to it tonight, I'll check it out, and report back.

Jeff
 

RimBlock

Active Member
Sep 18, 2011
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Singapore
Thanks for that.

I suspect they trashed the BIOS as the diag lights change to that pattern within around a second of the node turning on and don't change. This means flashing via BMC only.

The maintenance mode is for the flashing of the BIOS or BMC?

On one of the other nodes the lights go through quite a few patterns before coming to one where all the leds are on and staying there.

It could be a hardware issue but as they said they were unable to flash the unit I strongly suspect they borked it.

Update: Have also posted on the Dell forums.

Picture of the led cluster I cannot find any information on from Dell.

 
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LANm0nk3y

New Member
Oct 28, 2013
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Having problems with mine as well. I configured mine from the Bios and did not seem to have a problem until I went in and changed the IP, now getting BMC not found errors.

My board does not reboot at 45 sec. but it does show BMC now found.

My systems came with current firmware installed so I didn't have to update. I am looking for a way to re-flash the BMC from dos thinking this may help.



.
Thanks for your help -- I was able to actually use this finding and got into dos to do SOCFLASH 1.32 and recovered my BMC. the system board is now functioning again.:cool:
 

LANm0nk3y

New Member
Oct 28, 2013
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Thanks for your help -- I was able to actually use this finding and got into dos to do SOCFLASH 1.32 and recovered my BMC. the system board is now functioning again.:cool:
BTW: You guys should update BMC to 1.33, it fixes lockup setting up in BIOS
 

legen

Active Member
Mar 6, 2013
213
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Sweden
BTW: You guys should update BMC to 1.33, it fixes lockup setting up in BIOS
Really? We have not succeeded with settings a static ip from BIOS on 1.30, this corrupted the BMC. We then flashed with 1.33 to get BMC working again but when we try to set static it automatically reverses to DHCP.

Il try again to verify this but if it works for you it should work for us, that would be great.
 

legen

Active Member
Mar 6, 2013
213
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Sweden
anyone still have problem with C6100 BMC?
Strangely yes. One of our nodes started to malfunction some days ago. It was running BIOS 1.71 and BMC 1.33.
What happens is that the web-gui starts running really slow. The remote control java application goes down to 0-fps. After this i.e. IPMIView still works (but no KVM console). At this stage the web-gui timeouts and its impossible to access it for a long time.

We have tested downgrading BMC to 1.30, did not help. Will do more investigation today
but im not optimistic.

EDIT: Accessing the web-gui it just keeps loading,
 

MACscr

Member
May 4, 2011
119
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Legen, did you ever solve your dhcp issue? After upgrading mine on one, it was fine, but another when I try to set a static IP, I get:

/usr/bin/ipmitool -I open lan set 1 ipaddr 10.0.1.107
Setting LAN IP Address to 10.0.1.107
LAN Parameter Data does not match! Write may have failed.
 

mhoward

New Member
Nov 9, 2016
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This issue just bit me and I was able to use this thread to recover.
We have several dozen C6100 system.
Previously, never had any trouble with setting static BMC/IPMI LAN ipaddr via BIOS.
However, on all units we received I immediately flashed the BMC to 1.33 immediately prior to setting static dedicated BMC/IPMI LAN NIC info.

We expanded our network layout and I had to change some static ipaddrs (from 192.168.x.0/24 => 172.16.0.0/16).
I immediately hit this issue.

LANm0nk3y wrote:
> BTW: You guys should update BMC to 1.33, it fixes lockup setting up in BIOS

I am running BMC 1.33 and still got bit by this.

After recovering (per instructions provided by Toddh in this thread) I did some experimentation.
I found that I can change the static BMC/IPMI LAN ipaddr by following the following process:
  • F2 to BIOS Setup
  • observe old BMC/IPMI LAN with old static ipaddr on dedicated NIC
  • change from static => DHCP
  • F10 ... save and restart
  • F2 to BIOS Setup
  • observe BMC/IPMI LAN with dhcp-assigned info on dedicated NIC
  • change from DHCP => static
  • enter new static ipaddr + netmask + gateway on dedicated BMC/IPMI NIC
  • F10 ... save and restart
Switching old static => DHCP (F10 save & restart) => static works for me.

Michael