Dell PowerEdge 1750 PowerEdge RAID Controller 4/Di Firmware Update Version: 412W TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Performing the Firmware Upgrade 3.0 Minimum recommended ESM, System BIOS, and driver levels 4.0 Fixes or Enhancements 5.0 Important Information 6.0 Change History 1.0 Introduction This firmware update delivers bug fixes and enhancements for the PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller 4/Di in PowerEdge 1750 systems. 2.0 Performing the Firmware Upgrade Note: Before upgrading the firmware to 412N please verify that your firmware is at the 4.10. Dell Webpack: This program creates a bootable diskette to upgrade the firmware of the controllers. You will need a formatted 3 1/2 inch floppy diskette for the following procedure. 1) Download the file to a directory on your hard drive. The file downloaded is a self extracting executable. 2) Insert a blank diskette into the system's diskette drive. 3) Double click on the file that you downloaded and follow the instructions on the screen to extract the files to the diskette. 4) Insert the diskette into the system with the RAID controller for which you want to update the firmware and reboot the system. 5) Follow the instructions on the screen to update the firmware. NOTICE: pflash.exe will be executed automatically and will report existing code level and prompt you to reconfirm before starting the firmware upgrade process. To perform this process in non-interactive mode please execute, pflash /? and read about possible command line switches. 6) Remove the diskette and reboot the system. Dell Update Package Instructions: Download 1. Click the "Download Now" link to download the file. 2. If the Export Compliance Disclaimer window appears, click the "I agree" link to accept the agreement. 3. When the File Download window appears, click "Save" to save the file to your hard drive. Installation 1. Browse to the location where you downloaded the file and double-click the new file. 2. Read over the release information presented in the dialog window. 3. Download and install any prerequisites identified in the dialog window before proceeding. 4. Install any necessary Embedded Systems Management firmware prior to this BIOS update. 5. Click the Install button. 6. Follow the remaining prompts to perform the update. The Update Package can also be used with Dell OpenManage Server Administrator. See the Dell Update Package User's Guide for more information. 3.0 Fixes or Enhancements Component Current Version Previous Version Firmware 412W 4.10 BIOS H406 H111 Ctrl-M U812 7.09 Boot Block 1.0.6 1.0.2 MPT Firmware 1.03.11.05-IT 1.03.06.00-IT Firmware Enhancements 1. Improved hard drive status logic when virtual disks are spanned across channels. 2. Firmware will automatically change cache settings to WriteThru when a battery problem is detected to preserve data. If WriteBack was originally selected, firmware will switch back once battery problem has been corrected. 3. In the Rebuild function of CRTL-M, a new status called “INCON” will be displayed after a rebuild operation completes if any unrecoverable errors are found found in any of the hard disk drives. To identify the location of the error and if any data was present, run a check disk from the O/S (e.g. chkdsk in windows). Note: Dell recommends that a check disk or consistency check should be run after any RAID rebuild operation is completed by the controller. Firmware Bug Fixes 1. When multiple hard drive media errors are encountered, array rebuild operation will complete. 2. Consistency checks are aborted after reboot in cluster or stand alone mode. User must restart consistency check manually if needed. 3. Manual initialization calls will be rejected if a background initialization or consistency check is in progress on the logical drive. 4. Address potential controller lock-ups that could occur during either degraded, rebuilding or multiple drive pull and reinsert scenarios. 5. Addressed potential controller freezing during driver failure on possible Raid configurations. 4.0 Important Information Firmware upgrade while controller is doing background I/O task Firmware upgrade process will fail if any background I/O task (i.e. RAID-5 background consistency check or power on auto-resume rebuild and reconstruction) is being performed. The program will stop at the "Flash Download" screen with the following message: "Consistency Check of logical drive(s) in progress for adapter-X. Failed Writing Image on Adapter X with Baseport ...". Firmware and configuration on the adapter will not be modified by the program. A reboot can be performed to return to the Operating System. Wait until the background task completes before updating the firmware. Universal CRTL-M: Multiple adapters can be configured from CRTL-M, but currently selected adapter should be verified before performing any configuration changes using the Select Adapter option. Drive Migration: When hard drives are moved from one controller to another, the target controller configuration must be cleared to ensure a configuration mismatch does not occur. FlexRAID: FlexRAID Virtual Sizing is no longer supported by the current firmware (v.412W) and should be disabled prior to firmware flash. This can be performed from CRTL-M by accessing Objects -> Logical drive -> View/Update Parameters -> FlexRAID Virtual Sizing and will need to be performed for each logical drive present. 5.0 Change History Change from 4.04 to 4.10 Component Current version Previous version Firmware 4.10 4.04 BIOS B111 B109 Ctrl-M 7.09 7.05 WebBios 1.65 1.64 Firmware Bug Fixes 1. Some structures in the MPT target mode structure were not aligned on cache line boundaries. When these structures were invalidated, it caused other data adjacent to these structures (that was dirty) to be forgotten. 2. Added logic to reissue REQUEST_SENSE commands that are failed with a CHECK CONDITION so certain drives will not remain in a Contingent Allegiance condition. Some 160M drives will frequently fail a REQUEST_SENSE command due to CRC errors. These drives remain in a CA condition until an untagged REQUEST_SENSE command is issued. 3. Fixed issue where rebuild might not restart after a reboot 4. Resolved issue where errors on a drive could cause the adapter to hang. 5. Fixed issues where the firmware would start a background initialization during a NVRAM mismatch Ctrl-M Changes 1. Fixed Misspellings 2. Fixed issue where Ctrl-M would hang if user had a combination of PERC 4 DC and PERC 4 Di. Change History from 4.01 to 4.04 Component Current version Previous version Firmware 4.03 4.04 BIOS B109 B109 Ctrl-M 7.05 7.05 WebBios 1.64 1.64/2.27 Firmware Bug Fixes 1. During a state transition, battery HW will sometimes cycle through invalid states. FW was changed to ignore intermittent state changes. 2. Previously the FW would not kick off a negotiation upon insertion. It would also try to transfer at the speed of the previously inserted drive. It now renegotiates all inserted drives. Firmware Enhancements 1. Background initialization for all redundant LDs.