Hi Robert, 

Are you saying I need to remove a CPU, all but one RAM stick, all connections to the MB except power and the control panel?

Which section in the manual are you referring me to?

Thanks

Tim

OK - F10 is disabled - what then?

I have removed the power, drained any residual power so there aren't LEDs lit, numerous times. 

I haven't up as you referred above because I wasn't clear on what you meant. 

That said, when the machine boots up the iDRAC does not initialize and is disabled. It is still possible to update the firmware when it is in that state?

Sorry for the slow response.

The machine attempts to Initialize the iDRAC but fails. After that happens the bios loads and Lifecycle Controller is disabled.

After that I get the NIC & a RAID config options followed by:
Warning! iDRAC Initialization error. Continuing to boot may yield unexpected power loss due to unknown inventory and various features lost such as Remote Access, Active Power Management, Thermal Management, Inventory, LCD, or error reporting.

I am then offered F1 to continue or F2 to run the system setup.

I selected F1 and am given the SWC0700 error. 

I am asked to hit F1, F2 again or F11

No sign of CTRL + E

That is what I figured - bring on the sledge hammer. 

I have to say, I think this is pretty awful, most components can be bypassed on failure. Why on earth did dell decide to bake the idrac into the MB? 

Obviously I don't expect you to answer that :)

I have the same problem. I have to replace the whole motherboard or is there any option to replace the iDRAC?