David3 - You're correct...you flashed the wrong BIOS to your motherboard. Consider yourself lucky that you can boot to USB still. You should be able to boot DOS and flash back to your HDAMAI v1.12 BIOS just fine. Just make sure that you clear the CMOS or go into the BIOS and Load BIOS Defaults. If you want, I can rebuild your BIOS with the latest SI ROM's just like I did with HDAMA-revG v2.18 BIOS.
Yeah, I do consider myself very lucky actually, I have flashed once once before, and well... I had a very large paper weight. Yes that would be great. I would love to be able to handle the large 750 gig drives with my HDAMA-I. What do you need from me? ----- I reflashed BIOS took, everything seems to working like a champ. www dot arimacorp dot com/Server/Product/ViewDownload.asp?View=HDAMAI As you can see their roms are a bit old.
Just phlashed the 5403 everything works like a champ, saw the devices, was able to create the raids. I looked through the BIOS, everything appears to be working. I suppose on something like this, only time will tell. But from my initial phlashing and running, everything appeared intact and operational. Great job, many many thanks.
You can mod either HDAMA-revG 2.18 or HDAMAI 1.12 (original or mine) with AndyP's PhoenixTool. You'll need to first flash the target BIOS for your motherboard and then install Windows and create an RW-Everything ACPI report. Then use AndyP's PhoenixTool and generate your SLIC v2.1 BIOS.
Let me know if you can try the 5500 BIOS...it should work as I did the same thing for some of the HDAMA-revG BIOS. From the Windows driver descriptions, they might have tweaked the BIOS for Windows 7/2008R2. Also let me know if you're interested in AMD PowerNow support...that's gotta be hard coded for your specific CPU's since they didn't include the BIOS code to do it dynamically.
OK, I will phlash the 5500 later today, I am not running windows, I believe that utilization is Windows only, however, if VMWare can utilize it, I am all for making my system that much better. Also, I did noticed that when installing VMWare, it didn't see the raid device, it saw the individual devices, I presume this is normal onboard raid functionality, and the raid should be built with mdadm or some other methodology. Any ideas on that one?
Alright, so i've just spent a good chunk of time doing battle with a RevG - these things are gonna' live in a rack, so I didn't have the option of toying with it on and off over a few weeks. Once its running its running, and it needs to be running Wink2k8R2. I was a whacked out insomniac when I started this, so i'll do my best to be coherant and give back something useful. First though, thankyou to all in this thread - wouldn't have had a hope in hell with out the information here. Based on: Typical ebay RevG Rackable config, dual optos 2gb ram Aim: Single 80GB SATA based Win2k8R2 install using onboard 3114 controller. No RAID at all. Install medium *was* a USB stick. Loading took 30-40 minutes a pop. About 30 minutes ago I gave in and went and got an old IDE drive, should've done that a long time ago.. What worked: IDE DVDROM + Win2k8R2 + 80GB SATA Drive on Port 1 + official BIOS 2.18B *UNMODDED* What didn't work: Anything before BIOS 2.18B : not a hope in hell. Took me a while to be sure. BIOS 2.18B + Si v 5.5.0.0 BIOS Mod from page 7 + USB Stick Install + 80gb SATA: Spent most of my time on this, seemed like the ideal solution incase I ever need to put a few more drives in this box. I also came _oh so very close_ to making this work. I had a hard time making the drive show up. It seemed like unless I had it as part of a RAID set, the bios ignored it. Tried setting it as a one disk concatenated array on the off, didn't work - showed up in the BIOS but stopped showing up in Windows Setup. When it wasn't in an "array" the newest drivers from the Si download page worked just fine, allowed me to partition/format without any problem, but of course Windows wouldn't allow an install because the disk wasn't bootable - it presented me with the following verbose error: "Install Failure: Windows cannot be installed to disk 0 partition 1." Nice of it to tell me why seeing as it probably knows - ht tp://soci al.technet.micros oft.c om/Forums/en/w7itproinstall/thread/b8fbf1de-0d93-47ae-8ea8-70534f1816ba BIOS 2.18B + Si v 5.4.0.3 BIOS Mod from page 7 + USB Stick Install + 80gb SATA: Spent most of my time on the later version, given that this wasn't really aimed at 2k8r2 - but didn't work, couldn't see HDD - probably forgot to reset it in the RAID bios thinking about it now. BIOS Mods from Page 17: Not intended for the RevG, I finally noticed on the third read through.
Hi tqoang or other Bios-Guru who still reads this article, I`d really like to get a bios that gets the power from 135 down to 93 Watts. Everything I tried sofar is Crystalcpuid and Rightmark but whatever settings i trie (read the article on opteron versions vs speed and voltage, amd drivers /Powernow! etc etc) they all sooner or later freeze up the system. As far as i understand and to be rather blunt, you`d need the type of cpu used and the amount of ram, right ?Well, that`s easy: i have 2 systems, one with 2 GB and the other with 4GB, both have dual opteron 250`s in them. I`d really like to have these servers stable in shifting multipliers and voltage, can anybody lend a hand out here ? P.S. the new bios version (xxx5500 works great on this board as well;-) Thanks a million for that !
Where? Is there anywhere I can download these newest BIOS flashes? I have these same machines. Need to get Server 2008 (no R2) up on them. Hoping I haven't purchased a pile of crap.
Ryale, I have both of them here, want me to mail them to you? My address: PMterBekke<monkeytail>home.nl Be sure to read this thread carefully, then again: if you have 2 machines you can swap, while in windows, biosses and flash them... Does anybody know how to get these machines to go "green" without locking up whenever the processor changes multiplier or voltage? It saves 40 watts : usage goes from 135 to 93 watts, i`d love to have it online energy-efficient. Anyone?
I'm still here...just don't have as much free time as I used too. Ok, here's a few questions: 1. Which motherboard are you using again? HDAMA-revG or HDAMAI? 2. I need to know the exact CPU model. Opteron 250 has a few different models. OSA250CEP5AU (CG stepping, 800MHz FSB) OSA250FAA5BL (E4 stepping, 1GHz FSB) OSK250FAA5BL (HE, E4 stepping, 1GHz FSB) 3. Can you download a Fedora Linux Live CD and boot it up. It'll be a lot easier with the Linux kernel output about what the PowerNow voltages should be. Open a terminal and run: dmesg | grep -i powernow > linux_powernow.txt
Well lucky me, thread still alive..;-) I`m using Rev G, cpu`s are OSA250FAA5BL. So much for the easy answers: the Fedora`ll have to wait a few days (same time-issues as you are having..). Btw, no use in just putting in the Voltage and Multiplier from the Power and Thermal datasheet by AMD? OSA250FAA5BL OSA850FAA5BM 1.350 V 1.400 V 2200 MHz 1.350 V 2000 MHz 1.300 V 1800 MHz 1.250 V 1000 MHz 1.100 V With RMclock these ones work fine at 2400MHz @ 1.225 Volts, already a lot cooler.... How much am I limited to a precise amount of RAM (one machine`s got 2GB, the other 4) and is there any way to be able to upgrade to 2 275 / 285`s in the near future with Powernow/C&Q still working? Fedora download started... I`ll get back to you in about 2 days, thanks !!
Ok, I'll rebuild your BIOS with with the FID/VID's from the AMD datasheet. But I'd still like to see the Fedora PowerNow output. For my HDAMB board with a pair of Opteron 280's (OSA280FAA6CB), the AMD datasheet voltages were not stable. I happened to be trying Fedora Linux on the box to test it out and discovered that it was doing the frequency scaling without any BIOS mods. I used the Linux kernel's powernow-k8 p-state table and all is good under Windows 7. As for the upgrading, unfortunately I am hard-coding the ACPI DSDT table with static p-states for the specific Opteron model. I'm not a BIOS developer so I wouldn't know how to inject BIOS code that would dynamically compute things. BTW if you search for "opteron 280" on eBay, you can get the pair for around $40 USD. Everyone seems to want the two higher end models (285 and 290) so the prices are at least double. Even better is that I have those CPU's so I could quickly build you a BIOS for the Opteron 280's.
mterbekke - Please give this BIOS a try and provide some feedback. It's the HDAMA-revG v2.18 + SI3114 v5.5.0.0 + DSDT mod for Opteron 250 E4. Note: These are not RAM-amount specific, so it should work with both your 2GB and 4GB machines. Do one at a time of course. LINK REMOVED DUE TO BAD FEEDBACK
Well, the bios doesn`t get W XP booted (btw,should I have tried wit W7?), I am not sure, but just before it crashes it states something about acpi, not surprising of course.. Tried disabling acpi in the bios, but without success. I`m having another strange problem: i seem not to be able to flash from dos/usb/etc, but i can flash in windows. Whatever i do, it keeps saying it can`t flash when memory managers are loaded. The only things that are on it are IO, Command and MSDos (apart from the flash utility and the rom-file). Any idea what i am missing here? The Fedora booted fine on 1 machine(W7) but not on the XP, anyway, i couldn`t get any result with the command dmesg | grep -i powernow > linux_powernow.txt, so i tried just running dmesg, then grep. Here`s what i think you`re looking for: powernow-k8: 0 : fid 0x10 (2400 MHz), vid 0x6 powernow-k8: 1 : fid 0xe (2200 MHz), vid 0x8 powernow-k8: 2 : fid 0xc (2000 MHz), vid 0xa powernow-k8: 3 : fid 0xa (1800 MHz), vid 0xc powernow-k8: 4 : fid 0x2 (1000 MHz), vid 0x12 powernow-k8: 0 : fid 0x10 (2400 MHz), vid 0x6 powernow-k8: 1 : fid 0xe (2200 MHz), vid 0x8 powernow-k8: 2 : fid 0xc (2000 MHz), vid 0xa powernow-k8: 3 : fid 0xa (1800 MHz), vid 0xc powernow-k8: 4 : fid 0x2 (1000 MHz), vid 0x12 There`s also a lot bigger text-file, but i`m guessing this should do, let me know pls!
Ok, I see a discrepancy for the max 2400 MHz P-State. Let me redo the mod and try to get a new one posted soon.