Guide: Flashing H310/H710/H810 Mini & full size to IT Mode

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Hydrar

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Jan 21, 2021
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Just wondering, has anyone tried these controllers with 4Kn/512e drives? Broadcom's site seems to hint at 4Kn working with the later controllers like H710.
 
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JetSter735180

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Jun 9, 2020
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Anybody else have their fans spin faster after upgrading H710 mini card ? My R420s were running at 10% before upgrade and 40% after upgrade to IT mode.
 
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FullofQuarks

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Feb 8, 2021
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Hello, and thanks for all that you do!

I’m having issues flashing my H710P Mini D1. I have followed the guide, and have been using the FreeDOS and Linux images.

The process errors when running the “PD1CROSS” command, at the step of clearing the flash. It seems I have a similar problem to what a previous user posted.
The first pass of clearing the flash immediately fails with error code = 524288. The second pass shows “Completed 0%” for a second before erroring with the same error code.

I did run “PD1REVRT”, which successfully put the Dell PERC firmware back on. I unplugged, and attempted to flash again, but I keep getting to the same errors.

The previous user said they “finally made it through successfully”, but I’m not sure if they just kept trying the same command for 6 hours.

Is there something else I could try? Thanks!

EDIT: My message was written after a few hours of unsuccessful flashing. I let the server rest all night, and the next morning, it worked after a few tries. Not sure what was going on, but I was able to successfully flash the card! To anybody else who had my problem, unfortunately trying over and over, letting it rest, and trying again was my solution. Once it worked, it was a flawless process!
 
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thetoad

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Feb 10, 2021
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so I have a problem. I have an H710P mini in an r720xd that I am trying to flash. I removed the battery and dos part worked. I rebooted into linux, that part seemed to work. but setsas addr fails. any ideas?

never mind: I'm an idiot. I read the document so many times, and i somehow didn't reboot in between the first linux flash and the second linux setsas
 
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thetoad

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Feb 10, 2021
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now that I figured out my issue,

is there any "bios" type ui that comes with IT mode (it says to hit ctrl-c, but that doesn't seem to do anything, or it says it will load, but I end up straight in grub)
 

fohdeesha

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make sure the server is set to bios boot mode and not uefi, and then you need to send the ctrl+c command with the virtual keyboard, if you just hit it on your keyboard in the virtual console, your browser will intercept it
 

thetoad

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Feb 10, 2021
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ok, I was wondering if that was it. I hadn't gotten around to testing that yet. As a total aside, is there any way to put updated LSI firmwares on it, or should we be happy with it as it is? As it is, I really want to thank you for your instructions and setup. worked great (once I got my head out of my ass)
 

fohdeesha

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the firmware in the guide is the latest available for these LSI chipsets, which is from ~2017. LSI has not developed firmware for these older chipsets since
 

fohdeesha

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Added H810 B0 revision instructions to the guide at the request of and thanks to Cory

should have instructions/files for the blade chassis perc models soon
 

fohdeesha

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Added instructions/sub-guide for flashing the blade version of the H710 mini, judging by the amount of emails I've gotten from people with M620's this should help a few people
 

bonox

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Feb 23, 2021
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Thanks greatly for the hard work in documenting this and helping the rest of us plebs. I've got a stand alone (not motherboard integrated) H810 B0 which you've just added - the guide " H810 B0 Full Size - Fohdeesha Docs " has you using a flashing script B0-H710. There's nothing else on the image, so i've used it, but the followup is a message from info or sas2flash saying that there are no LSI adapters in the machine. It successfully reverts to the stock dell f/w though. Just wondered if the H710 update is appropriate for the 810 please?
 

fohdeesha

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Thanks greatly for the hard work in documenting this and helping the rest of us plebs. I've got a stand alone (not motherboard integrated) H810 B0 which you've just added - the guide " H810 B0 Full Size - Fohdeesha Docs " has you using a flashing script B0-H710. There's nothing else on the image, so i've used it, but the followup is a message from info or sas2flash saying that there are no LSI adapters in the machine. It successfully reverts to the stock dell f/w though. Just wondered if the H710 update is appropriate for the 810 please?
the command is correct, all b0 revision cards in the guide use the same chipset. I know at least a couple people who have used the 810 B0 section without issue. Regarding yours not showing any adapters, are you sure you're running the sudo command as outlined beforehand? If you are and still nothing, I would cold power the server (remove all power, including the raid battery), for 30 seconds or so, then boot it back up into linux and see if the card appears
 

bonox

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Feb 23, 2021
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Thanks. Pretty sure the sudo is correct as you get the character change in the prompt. No battery in it at all as per your original instruction but I'll power it off for longer. I just did a number of reboots instead of a full cold cycle.
 

bonox

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Feb 23, 2021
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Cold boot didn't fix the problem but I think i know what's happening. The linux image produces an error at boot "failure at drivers/scsi/mpt3sas/mpt3sas_scsih.c...." and repeated in the result from dmesg |grep mpt

I'm guessing (with extremely limited linux knowledge) that if the broadcom/lsi driver isn't loading you'll always get a failure like this - the info command you've written also returns 0 MPT immediately before the message about no adapters found. I might try this on some different hardware (the card currently plugged into an HP DL380) and see what happens as i've no idea how to update a live image to find an alternative driver.
 

fohdeesha

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Cold boot didn't fix the problem but I think i know what's happening. The linux image produces an error at boot "failure at drivers/scsi/mpt3sas/mpt3sas_scsih.c...." and repeated in the result from dmesg |grep mpt

I'm guessing (with extremely limited linux knowledge) that if the broadcom/lsi driver isn't loading you'll always get a failure like this - the info command you've written also returns 0 MPT immediately before the message about no adapters found. I might try this on some different hardware (the card currently plugged into an HP DL380) and see what happens as i've no idea how to update a live image to find an alternative driver.
The only other person I've seen with this issue (driver erroring out on linux boot), also had their card in a non-dell server ( a supermicro). Given you're having the exact same issue trying to flash the card in an HP, it's probably not much of a reach to say that the LSI MPT driver only likes RAM-booting these cards in dell servers for some reason. It could be a mixture of options in BIOS, not sure. Make sure anything regarding SR-IOV, I/OAT / DMA Engine etc are disabled in bios, and make sure the bios is up to date. if it still fails, you may need to find a dell server to do the flash in
 

bonox

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Feb 23, 2021
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Thanks fohdeesha - i've got things to try which is always more entertaining than being stuck in a dead end :)
 

JRED

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Feb 11, 2021
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Thanks fohdeesha and fourlynx - amazing work - flashed my H710P Mini B0 no problem on R720XD - now to connect it to the Brocade switch fohdeesha's also helped me out with massively!

I am sure for most this was obvious, but if anyone reads this and is wondering how to stop the orange warning light flashing after taking the battery out, clear the iDrac logs and it goes back to blue. Not 100% sure if it was flashing orange due to battery removal, or me taking a PSU out. Either way, the light went back to blue once i cleared the logs!