Bios Update

[krowczynski]

Hi everybody,

lasst week I had an hardware issue with an dell server.

So I called the dell support and after some days I got it fixed.

A little problem was that the dell technican told me that my bios is not up to date.

So my question is, can I upgrade the bios of my server(here it is a Dell 2950), even if this version is not on vmware HCL, or should I leave the version, which is located on HCL.

Thanks for answers and suggestions.

MCP, VCP

[Josh26 · Accepted solution]

The reality is Dell will release a new firmware just about weekly, and the HCL is updated nowhere near this often. Any time you need assistance from Dell, they will tell you to upgrade your firmware.

In general, my suggestion is to keep the firmware up to date, you are more likely to receive push back from Dell complaining your firmware is out of date than from VMWare complaining it is too recent.

[krowczynski]

Hi,

thanks for your answer

I also think so, but also wanted to hear it from other person.

MCP, VCP

[ChemaRB]

I had some troubles about updating BIOS on SUN blade servers... after updating, NIC's were redetected, asigned new names, and all vSwitch configuration breaks...

That's why I start updating everything BEFORE installing ESX, and keep firmwares stable after that.

[Josh26]

It's not unusual to see a case of a clearly failed power supply (no LED activity, you swap the cables and outlets, all indications are the power supply is dead) where Dell won't give you a replacement part under warranty because your RAID card is one firmware revision behind.

Keeping firmware "stable" sounds good until you have to deal with that sort of mess.