x3850 M2 Bios Settings

[astrolab]

Hi,

I am installing ESX 3.5 on IBM x3850 M2s, and I was wondering if anybody has the BIOS settings pinned down. No help from IBM in this situation.

Currently this is what I 've been setting:

Memory Settings: HPMA

CPU - Prefetcher settings --> disabled

Any input on this ?

Also, has anybody ventured in setting up a RAID on MegaRaid NT16 through the web interface via Digital KVM or such? I am experiencing problems with the mouse , where basically the mouse would not move horizontally, thus making it close to impossible to utilize the primitive interface only with the arrow keys : (

[Jwoods]

Page 28 of this x3850 M2/x3950 M2 techinical guide may help with HPMA.

[bradley4681]

outside of the memory settings i've usually left everything default in the BIO except for enabling Intel VT if your going to run 64bit OS's or OS's with paravirtualization.

BTW i would leave the memory at HPMA, this setting gives you the best performance

HPMA (high performance memory array)

FAMM (full array memory mirroring)

HAM (hot-add memory)

Cheers,

Bradley Sessions

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[HKWP]

Hi,

Did you have any success installing ESX 3.5 U3 on the x3850 M2? I can't get it to boot after the installation complete.

[mike_laspina]

Hi,

Yes I played with them and ending up going back to the defaults.

No issues to date after 5 months.

Nothing in the IBM redbooks require changing the settings.

The only reason to change the defaults would be to gain memory fault tolerance levels like allowing memory hot swapping, scrubbing etc.

Oh. BTW my VT setting was enabled by default.

[RParker]

Oh. BTW my VT setting was enabled by default.

We just received 3 Brand New IBM 3950 and VT was disabled, and I had to change it, but everything else was fine.

[mike_laspina]

Hmmmm. IBM is consistantly inconsistant. lol

Update! Just got 2 addition 3950 M2's and VT was on by default! Even after clearing CMOS!

[HKWP]

After a day long of troubleshooting, I still have yet resolve the issue. I have tested various senarios and still have no luck.

After installing ESX 3.5 U3 (also tried to install ESX 3.5 U2) and then restart the server, VMware does not start and leads me to a shell to execute vm-support.

I can't even find out the exact cause of the problem. Are there any specific BIOS settings?? Would the issue caused by the six-core processor???

[mike_laspina]

Hi,

Try removing the LEXAR USB Jumpdrive from the picture.

usb_control/bulk_msg: timeout

hiddev0: USB HID v1.10 Pointer on usb3:2.2

hub.c: new USB device 00:1d.3-2, assigned address 2

scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

Vendor: LEXAR Model: JUMPDRIVE SPORT Rev: 1000

Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02

VMWARE SCSI Id: Supported VPD pages for sda : 0x1f

VMWARE SCSI Id: Could not get disk id for sda

:VMWARE: Unique Device attached as scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0

Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0

SCSI device sda: 2026592 512-byte hdwr sectors (1038 MB)

sda: Write Protect is off

Partition check:

sda: sda1

WARNING: USB Mass Storage data integrity not assured

USB Mass Storage device found at 2

[HKWP]

I have just experienced the same issue with the mouse. I have spoken with the IBM tech, he had seen issues with the x3850 M2 using KVM. In my case, it acutally caused the VM kenerl failed to load.

[ajames]

I just had the same issue with vmkernel not loading after a fresh install of 3.5 U4 and after much searching I came across this thread and decided to pull the USB KVM and then it booted fine. The error "could not start pcpu" was a bit of a red herring.