Pat

My organization began switching back to HP servers. Interestingly, HP servers are totally different than 10 years ago. No more Netservers and TopTools management software. Now HP has Proliant servers and Insight Manager software, thanks to their merger with Compaq 9 years ago.

Sure, every vendor has their problems. Maybe IBM will make a comeback, but with HP growing every quarter, and having more than half the server market for blades, I just don’t see it happening anytime soon.

IBM Phone Support refused to help me as this was a config issue, not a hardware issue. Sucky. HP’s kit makes this so much easier, and the much worse software within Windows to configure the RAID card has the feature listed, has no information in the help and grays out the option when you select the drive.

From the limited information IBM provide about this feature, is that “Online” means reboot, go into the BIOS and configure the online RAID expansion. I don’t know if you can then reboot and it will continue or if you have to wait until it’s done (I left it until it was done – 10 hours offline.)

My definition of ‘online’ doesn’t include ‘rebooting into the BIOS’.

IBM have quickly released x3650 M3 as I predicted as the M2 was such a rushed to market, v1 EFI BIOS bug filled release. I Imagine Warranty and Support were happy when the M3 came out.

This server is so horrific with it’s lack of cache battery and 5 minute EFI initialization times that I’m looking at HP Servers for the first time in 10 years.

I followed the instructions to the letter but the drives connected in the expansion unit don’t work. I have swapped the drives over to rule out doa HDD’s, swapped the back planes and cables over to rule that out but I can’t get them to work.

I’m going slightly mad trying to install Windows 2008 Enterprise R2 into “my” new IBM x3650 M2 (7947-96G). The SAS controller is a M5015.

If I launch the IBM ServerGuide 8.21 CD, at the end of the process, when the system asks for the Windows DVD, after having put it into the DVD bay, it comes up the error “D:\Sources\Setup.exe is not a valid Win32 application” and I have to shut down the server.
If I try installing Windows without the ServerGuide, instead, the installation process starts fine, but then, when the system asks for the RAID controller drivers, I get stuck.
I had a chat with an IBM support member here in Italy, he drove me first to the IBM ToolsCenter Bootable Media Creator v2.0 for Microsoft Windows and then to the SAS Controller drivers’ page (http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5082161&brandind=5000008).
I extracted the drivers into a USB pendrive and attached to the server. But the system doesn’t like none of the 3 choices.

What shall I do next? What I’m doing wrong?

Thank you for your help.
Fabrizio.

I can clearly hear your frustration.

I’ve had my troubles with getting UEFI working right (as it sometimes refused to boot correctly, just as you’ve said), but all of these issues have been worked out mostly.

It sounds like you purchased your hardware directly from IBM? That’s not possible here in Switzerland – customers purchase the hardware from an IBM Business Partner (like us) which purchase the Hardware from an IBM authorized Distributor (Avnet), which purchases from IBM.

If one BP can’t help you, choose another one. That doesn’t look like advice that helps you, though.

I have no idea what’s wrong with your configuration. If you were in Switzerland, i’d come onsite and help you get your servers to boot as it should for free – just to make sure you can enjoy your IBM hardware.

As it is right now (according to my docs), i’ve deployed 12 x3650 M2 (2x SBS08, 10x WS08/R2), 2 x3550 M2 (WS08R2), 6 x3400 M2 (SBS 08).

All the SBS deployments, i did without the ServerGuide CD. Some of the other deployments, i did directly with install media, some with USB, some with ServerGuide.

Do you have an IMM KVM capability enabler installed in your server? If yes, i might be able to help your remotely. Contact me on skype – my username is “lukasbeeler”.

Regards,

Lukas

Just setting up 4 brand new x3650 M2′s.
Worked with IBM’s pre-sales to spec servers per our operating and OS requirements.
Brand new out-of-the-box as-shipped directly from IBM (Feb 2010).

Well, I’m in OS install purgatory and IBM support’s inferno together with four new servers (boat anchors?) that won’t boot to anything but BIOS, RAID WebBIOS/CLI or ServerGuide. (With these boat-anchors-shaped-like-rack-mount-servers I can’t even get across Styx to spend some time in Hades!)

To begin: IBM shipped a version of ServerGuide that doesn’t even support the server hardware with which it shipped. !?!?

…Three versions of ServerGuide later…

Only positives so far: WebBIOS worked well to config RAID 5 across 4 300GB SAS drives. ServerGuide seemed straight-forward and worked well for RAID setup and until OS install step.

Now: Much trouble there is! Uncertain is the future. But, almost certain it is that IBM it does not contain.

ServerGuide (latest version(s) d/l’ed from IBM – @v.8.21 now) hangs at OS install (W2k8R2) with unspecified “Critical Error.” Only solution is to shut down machine.

Server won’t boot to any media but ServerGuide CD.
Unable to boot directly to Win install DVD, USB or any other media at all.

Received the exact same run-around from IBM support described by Seth Conn above: “Must be: faulty install media, faulty DVD/Optical drive, faulty power supply, ServerGuide not supported on this system (It is according to ServerGuide page and ReadMe.), faulty .iso’s, need updated BIOS/Firmware/UEFI on MB/Raid/IMM/OpticalDrive, need updated drivers… Paid for extra support. Hardware support insists it must be some software issue. Software team is convinced it’s hardware. Both say the other doesn’t know what they’re talking about. ?!?

What? Is this how IBM does integrated service and support these days?

I am seeing a uniform response now every time someone new from IBM has looked at our trouble: “Well, something is clearly wrong! Let’s see what we can do…” [after several iterations of trying what we’ve already tried several times] “Ah, well, since [none of what we just did worked], it must be a [software/hardware : failure/issue/glitch/bug (pick one that has nothing to do with this support person)] and you need to [install this patch/update -or- contact (insert IBM support organ that has nothing to do with this support person)]… It would be really trivial to emulate *all* the IBM support I’ve had so far (and had my fill, to be sure) with fairly simple software… Um, you don’t think???… No, that’s just not possible. They couldn’t really get away with…

I’ve up- and down-graded and flashed every firmware and software component IBM can specify; replaced: 6 power supplies, 4 optical drives, 2 RAID cards, 2 MB batteries and 8 SAS HDD’s; and tried every OS install from Red Hat to MSWinServer2000 to Debian to MSWin2003R2 to Ubuntu to Win2008R2 on every media from DVD/CD to USB HDD to USB Flash to SAN to network .iso, with 9 or more different versions of ServerGuide (which were all proposed as “the answer” “to get the system up and running, so we can see what’s really going on,”) all to no avail. No OS will boot, let alone install.

I’d been led to believe a lot of these problems had been solved / solutions improved by IBM. But, unless I find a solution that doesn’t involve a “consultant” or IBM’s pricy add-on “support,” I will move back to HP or Dell for our small / mid size servers.

Just too typical. Poorly documented overkill complexity that doesn’t perform in even the most basic configuration or set-up scenarios.

My new HP and Dell servers all boot the MS Win install media just fine. !?!

I really can’t believe these servers won’t install Server 2003 or R2 or 2008 or it’s R2.
How do IBM think these servers are going to be used?
I’ve asked IBM support (and even gone back to the pre-sales guys I worked with) to give me some – any! – supported base OS and configuration. Nothing. “We don’t really have reference configurations for other vendors’ software.” O.K., how about IBM software? Nothing. So, what am I supposed to do with these servers?

I’ve gone from really believing I’d have at least one of these servers in production this month and that IBM would really deliver, to being ready to RMA all four and move on to some hardware that works.

I’m done.

(Ironic biological double entendre ain’t my forte – but I got one out!)

Ran into much of what people have already experienced, one thing I did find though, is that on an LCD monitor, if the contrast was 80 or above, I was unable to see many of the text labels in the webbios’, once I turned this down they displayed normally – might just be our crap monitor though.

Also the new “updateexpress” system is not really working that well, for me it worked okay once I had installed windows, but their boot cd creater tool went into an infinite loop with some ata1 device and never got as far as actually updating any firmware.

Very dissapointed with this model so far.

I *was* able to get all the prompts to be visible by re-downloading and forcing a re-install of all the x3650M2 firmwares.

I *was* able to designate a global hot spare drive (slot #12).

I was *NOT* able to make the global hot spare drive “kick in” when I simulated a drive failure (pulled the drive in slot # 8).

I’ve ordered the Adaptec 51245 and will share the results after installation & test.

Jim

Any help will be appreciated.
thanks!

I’m to the point of trying this combination and throwing out the LSI (MR10i) card.

Thanks,

Jim

-Nathan