ARIMA HDAMA G Bios upgrade to allow Server 2008

Discussion in 'BIOS Mods' started by dogzdinner, Dec 10, 2009.

  1. dogzdinner

    dogzdinner MDL Novice

    Dec 10, 2009
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    I've tried disabling the serial/parallel ports as I don't need them anyway....but I'll try the IRQ stuff now.

    Thanks,

    Tom...
     
  2. dogzdinner

    dogzdinner MDL Novice

    Dec 10, 2009
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    Tried every combination of the IRQ settings....no joy!

    I've always had the OS set to Other.....and reset the config every time I go into the Bios....but thanks for the advice!

    Tom...
     
  3. tqhoang

    tqhoang MDL BIOS Modder

    Apr 29, 2008
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    Have you tried installing with just two sticks of RAM?

    Also have you tried forcing install as an APM computer?...not sure if it'll get stuck as an APM computer forever though...
     
  4. dogzdinner

    dogzdinner MDL Novice

    Dec 10, 2009
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    How would I force the APM?

    Is this something like the 'Hit F7' when it asks if you want to install drivers on XP/2000?

    If so, I'm not sure when you do this on the latest installers.....they don't seem to have the blue/yellow dos type screen setup that the old setups had?

    Let me know! :D

    Tom...
     
  5. dogzdinner

    dogzdinner MDL Novice

    Dec 10, 2009
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    Sorry, I meant to say as well that I did try with only 2 sticks of memory as well, no change there though!

    Tom...
     
  6. tqhoang

    tqhoang MDL BIOS Modder

    Apr 29, 2008
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    Sorry, it looks like from Vista/2008 and later don't have that feature. One thing you could try is to disable ACPI and ACPI SRAT in your BIOS.

    Also, what other cards do you have installed in your server?
     
  7. dogzdinner

    dogzdinner MDL Novice

    Dec 10, 2009
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    Yes....have tried ESXi....all works flawlessly apart from I cannot get ESXi to format the 4 1.5Tb drives I've installed on the 3ware 9500s Raid Card.....recognises the card after I installed the drivers in ESXi and sees the two arrays I have created but will not let me create them as additional storage! :eek:

    I bought 4 servers containing these HDAMA motherboards (they are made by Rackable Systems, now owned by SGI)but just cannot get anything above 2003 R2 installed on them....but strangely cannot get Windows Home Server to work on them either! :(

    But even stranger that all of that...EVERYTHING installs under ESXi apart from the raid issue mentioned above but it all seemed very slow.

    I haven't given up yet though!

    Tom...
     
  8. FireBug

    FireBug MDL Novice

    Jan 1, 2010
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    got windows XP 64 bit to install with ACPI

    after reading the post due to having the same problems i tried the solutions mentioned but i just installed windows xp 64 bit with the ACPI Multiprocessor X64 option and its installed and works fine with ACPI enabled. i wonder if windows server 2003 X64 will do the same thing :confused: i'll post results later.

    Also used ESXI 3.5/4.0 myself and also experienced the slow RAID issue.

    p.s i tried to add some custom BIOS strings using the Pheonix Bios editior and it complained that the 16bit/32bit PCI routing tables are incorrect does anyone with knowlege of BIOS modding have any ideas on that?
     
  9. sebus

    sebus MDL Guru

    Jul 23, 2008
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    Maybe you really ought to contact the manufacturer of the board?

    sebus
     
  10. dogzdinner

    dogzdinner MDL Novice

    Dec 10, 2009
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    XP works fine for me as well....

    If only it was as easy as just contacting the manufacturer....tried with Rackable Systems (now part of SGI) with no joy at all and then tried down the Arima root who were worse....this forum has been the only source of any decent feedback!

    Cheers,

    Tom....
     
  11. FireBug

    FireBug MDL Novice

    Jan 1, 2010
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    #32 FireBug, Jan 1, 2010
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2010
    Arima was taken over

    Arima was bought by Flextronics who still have all the BIOS and drivers avalible on their website im still waiting on a response from their technical support team ;)


    flextronics.com /computing/support/server/Product/ListDownload.asp?cond=Model,0&key=0 (had to put a space after the .com due to lack of posts :D)

    Manuals are also listed.
     
  12. dogzdinner

    dogzdinner MDL Novice

    Dec 10, 2009
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    Can anyone send me a link for the latest PBE?

    That Rapidshare link doesn't work for me!
     
  13. dogzdinner

    dogzdinner MDL Novice

    Dec 10, 2009
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    Thanks for that....am I right in thinking I can put this onto some kind of WinPE disk?

    Tom...
     
  14. FireBug

    FireBug MDL Novice

    Jan 1, 2010
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    a little progress

    i still have not heard from flextronics, but may have found a possible source of the problem.

    i tried to install Win7/2008/2008 R2 and vista from inside windows xp X64 instead of booting to the disks. It loaded the installer but it does not recognise any of the storage controllers and the drivers don't work either. Maybe the storage controllers is the source of the problem?

    if anyone has a spare Sata or IDE card could maybe test disabling the onboard IO controllers and see if there is any change?
     
  15. dogzdinner

    dogzdinner MDL Novice

    Dec 10, 2009
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    I've been trying all those directly booting from DVD.....it gets just past the first loading bar across the bottom of the screen, screen first goes blank and then goes straight to BSOD with the ACPI error, contact your manufacturer....etc.

    I just wish I had an opportunity to load drivers as on previous Windows OS installers you could hit F7 and disable ACPI!!

    Ho Hum!

    Tom...
     
  16. dogzdinner

    dogzdinner MDL Novice

    Dec 10, 2009
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    And I forgot to mention, I haven't got onboard SATA.....I've got a 64bit PCI 9500s card from 3ware.

    Cheers,

    Tom...