[OmniOS-discuss] [smartos-discuss] Supermicro BIOS updates

[Jon Dison]

That is a very common school-of-thought... If you're not experiencing
trouble with your system, why go out and update the BIOS?  SuperMicro is
just trying to protect their technically-challenged customers from damaging
their systems by applying BIOS updates for no good reason.

That being said, I own and have deployed systems with SuperMicro boards
(mostly X9SCM-F) and always update the BIOS to the latest available on the
site at the time.... I have yet to encounter any issues.

The only complaint I have about SuperMicro BIOSes is probably true of many
motherboard manufacturers....  Certain processors will only run in certain
boards with certain BIOS revisions.  Sometimes you get an older board from
a vendor and have to find an older chip to run the BIOS update so that you
can install the newer chip.  Not a huge deal I know, but just kind of a
pain.


On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 10:21 PM, Paul B. Henson <henson at acm.org> wrote:

> Sorry for two potentially OT supermicro posts in a row :), I just know
> they are really popular for illumos servers and there's such a wealth of
> knowledge on these mailing lists.
>
> I usually update firmware/BIOS on a fairly regular basis on my servers,
> but supermicro has a fairly scary warning on their download page:
>
> ------
> WARNING!
> Please do not download / upgrade the BIOS/Firmware UNLESS your system has
> a BIOS/firmware-related issue. Flashing the wrong BIOS/firmware can cause
> irreparable damage to the system.
>
> In no event shall Supermicro be liable for direct, indirect, special,
> incidental, or consequential damages arising from a BIOS/firmware update.
> ------
>
> Where it seems they pretty much do not want you to ever update unless you
> know of a specific issue the update will solve. Of course, they also don't
> post changelogs with their bios updates, so it's kind of hard to know 8-/.
> I can't remember the last time I had a box die due to a corrupted bios
> update (most of the ones I've worked with won't even let you try to flash
> the wrong firmware), I was wondering if that's a problem with supermicro
> boards to the point where they actively discourage updates?
>
> Their technical support sent me a changelog for the motherboard I'm
> working with upon request (seems like it would be a timesaver for them to
> just post it in the first place), and I think I do want to go ahead and
> update the bios. I haven't had to boot DOS for a bios update in a *long*
> time, my workstations for years have supported just sticking in a USB flash
> drive with the image on it and updating from the bios itself, and the
> servers I've been using supported bios updates via the IPMI web interface
> or CLI. What's the preferred way to generate a bootable DOS image with the
> bios update utility and image on it nowadays? I was thinking of just
> downloading a freeDOS floppy image, loopback mounting it to copy on the
> additional files, and then booting it via the IPMI remote media option. Is
> there an easier way?
>
> Thanks much…
>
>
> ------------------------------**-------------
> smartos-discuss
> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/**member/archive/184463/=now<https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/184463/=now>
> RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/**member/archive/rss/184463/**
> 24572942-77406857<https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/184463/24572942-77406857>
> Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/**
> member/?member_id=24572942&id_**secret=24572942-8aaf8efc<https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=24572942&id_secret=24572942-8aaf8efc>
> Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omniosce.org/ml-archive/attachments/20130708/448f3bed/attachment.html>