Ibm System X3650 M3 Firmware Download _BEST_
Audie Reints
I am trying to revive an old IBM x3650 M2 server, but am running into trouble with IMM/IPMI related to the FW being almost as old as the server itself. Server is from 2010, firmware is from '09 (UEFI) and '11 (IMM/DSA) and is running ESXi.
I checked the official supportsite (that has no firmware at all for the server) and did my best Google-fu, but have not found any useable FW download. The problem I'm having (IMM changes "Failed in the backend") is "common" and others have resolved this same issue with a firmware update, so that's my focus.
I purchased an IBM X3650 M2 used, but in fantastic condition. I mean, this server is completely dustless and passes all the stress tests I throw at it. I would like to upgrade the firmware/UEFI to whatever the latest builds are before I install VMware ESXi 5.5. I am unfamiliar with how to go about this on an IBM server. I hope the pros of r/homelab experts have some experience with this process and can give me some pointers. Thanks!
You can use the Lenovo XClarity Essentials Bootable Media Creator (BoMC) to update your IBM X3650 M4 servers firmware and BIOS/UEFI, Device drivers are not included in the bootable image and must be updated separately.
Technical overview
Users can use Lenovo XClarity Essentials Bootable Media Creator (hereinafter referred to as BoMC) to create bootable media suitable for firmware updates, VPD updates, inventory and FFDC collection, advanced system configuration, FoD Keys management, and diagnostics on supported ThinkSystem, System x, BladeCenter systems, and storage platform.
Using BoMC, users can create a single bootable image on supported media (such as CD, DVD, ISO image, USB flash drive, or set of PXE files) that bundles multiple ThinkSystem, System x, and BladeCenter systems updates from UpdateXpress System Packs containing firmware update packages. From V11.4.0, BoMC supports users to update firmware on supported storage platforms through bootable ISO. From V11.5.1, BoMC supports users to create a full (all-in-one) bootable image for full management function, including firmware update, VPD update, inventory and FFDC collection, advanced system configuration, FoD Keys management, diagnostics, RAID configuration, and secure erase.
Important: Device drivers are not included in the bootable image and must be updated separately.
Source: _lenovo/bomc_bk.pdf
Below I will describe the steps to update the IBM x3650 M4 servers firmware and UEFI by using the Lenovo XClarity Essentials Bootable Media Creator (BoMC).
So now after creating the boot ISO I can boot my IBM x3650 M4 server from it. Therefore I will use the Integrated Management Module (IMM) and its remote control video viewer to connect from remote directly on the console of the server we want to update.
Lenovo XClarity Essentials UpdateXpress
-xpress
Lenovo XClarity Essentials UpdateXpress (hereafter referred to as the UpdateXpress application) can be used to acquire and apply UpdateXpress System Packs (UXSP) and individual updates to your local or remote system. The UpdateXpress application acquires and deploys UpdateXpress System Pack (UXSP) update packages and individual updates. UXSPs contain firmware and device driver updates.
Source: _essentials/ux_t_introducing_ux_app.html
You can also download firmware, BIOS/UEFI, drivers and software for your IBM servers directly at the following links and install them manually directly from the running operating system.
The IBM x System server x3650-7979 51G came with two SAS 73GB drives. First I went into the Adaptec ServeRAID 8k menu by pressing CTRL-A on bootup. Ran the basic check drive function and then formed an array out of the two drives by preparing the drives indivdually for the array, then formed an array by adding both drives to the array as RAID 1 (mirroring) across drives in bay 0 and 1. I don't trust these older drives (roughly 4 years old) and having them in a hardware RAID might be a good idea. Hardware rRAID is transparent to the system (means Debian will not know about the underlying RAID) and I've heard that booting from a software RAID has some issues.
Debian does not come with firmware for the Broadcom NetXtremeII network adapters used in these IBM systems, thus go over to firmware-bnx2 and download the tar. Extract it to a USB stick so that the bnx2/... dir is on the root of the stick and attach it to the server. Debian will munge it in and go on with installation.
firmware-bnx2 is from Debian's non-free repository and out-of-the-box your apt sources.list is probably set to have only main repos taken into account. After a few updates, then, you might oversee these important lines:
Just follow this procedure to create the iso image with custom driver. If it will not work and you need to stay on ESXi 5.5 you may need to downgrade the firmware or contact Lenovo to give you a newer driver.
I have to thank to the users at VMware community forum, who have the same issue and pointed us to the right solution. Although they were even trying to downgrade the firmware. But I believe using newer driver is a more elegant solution.
I do quite a bit with IBM/Lenovo servers in my job, so let me give you a tip regarding firmware updates. You can use the Bootable Media Creator (BoMC) to create an ISO with firmware updates on your local system, then you simply mount the ISO on the server and it will automatically install the firmware updates.
I posted a link in my previous post, you should give it a full read - ESXi 5.5 boot issues with an IBM x3650 M2 2U server ServeTheHome Forums. The TL;DR is that to change the Legacy Video Support option in the BIOS of the server.
I have an IBM x3650 server with 4 SAS HDs 300GB x 4. I wanted to install Vmware Esxi 5.5 on this machine which already had Esxi 5.1. After boot up and installation it gave me an error about multiple installation or something to that effect.
Stupidly I did a low level format using Disk Utilities in Server Raid and now I get the following errors
On the drive caddy does the green light show up on all 4 drives? I think the x3650's flash when they are being accessed, also try cold booting it and see if they all flash one at a time left to right.
If that doesn't give you an answer, depending on what model of x3650 you have (looks like it has an 8k controller, so sounds like it is one of the first generation of x3650s from about 2006 or 2007), a possible option at this point is to download the bootable servraid support CD ISO (the support CD, NOT the application CD!) and burn the image to a CD.
For me, it came down to knowing how to work with the ServeRAID utility that you CTRL-L into at boot time. Also, and most critically I think, I googled ServeRAID Support CD that was suggested in this thread, downloaded and burned it, and it updated the firmware on the RAID controller. In fact, that's the only thing I booted into the CD for.
After that and a couple of boots, I was able to use new disks, reconfigure any kind of RAID on them I wanted, etc.. The only thing I haven't figured out yet is how to fix a corrupted disk in a RAID configuration, say RAID 1 with 6 disks total. But I'm willing to play around with the ServeRAID utility, I have a lot of spare disk drives!
As I said in my other post on this issue, I prefer software RAID using ZFS on my Solaris 11.3 and PCBSD 10.2 systems.