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Cant upgrade BIOS on R730
I am having an issue with a Dell R730. All of its firmware was quite out of date, however everything was upgraded without issue apart from the bios. When I try to update the bios, the server reboots and it says that the lifecycle controller is requesting system updates, however it will hang at this screen until I press ctrl alt del to restart the server. I have to do this 3 times to get it back online, and then I will have to reinstall the idrac / lifecycle controller firmware before it will let me try again. I have tried 4 different bios versions but they all do the same. Nothing is reported in the logs on idrac. Is there anything else I can try? Or is my server knackered? Thanks in advance for any help.
Dell-DylanJ
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4 Operator
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2.9K Posts
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December 11th, 2018 08:00
Hello,
What you may consider trying is to perform a flea power drain on the server, in order to clear lifecycle controller jobs completely, or to perform an NVRAM clear using the jumper on the motherboard to reset the BIOS to default. If this succeeds, you can try the update again without any other jobs potentially creating issues.
If you check page 178 of the Owner's Manual, you can get further detail on the NVRAM_CLR jumper.
https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/poweredge-r730_owners-manual_en-us.pdf
You may also consider trying to run the update from another location, like if you've been running them from the OS, try in the iDRAC, the lifecycle controller, or booting to the live update .iso here: https://dell.app.box.com/v/bootabler730/folder/60645275176