Z440 BIOS problem with PLX PEX8311 PCI Express-to-Local Bus Bridge

[fgorseth]

Will there be a BIOS fix for HP ProlIant DL380 Gen9 servers as well?

[Skylarking]

What is actually the fixed in the BIOS and does this known fault impact any older generation Z series workstation?

If so will there be a BIOS fix for older Z series worksation so that these users can install such PCIe cards in their PCIe slots?

[igork]

Dan_WGBU, Thank's for info

[Dan_WGBU]

Skylarking,

The very short answer is that the bridge end point reports a PCIe capabilities structure as version 1.0, but the BIOS interprets it as version > 2.0.  Then it clears a bit in the Main Control Register Data.  This should not happen, because clearing this bit blocks PCI-to-PCIe accesses in the bridge.  

There are no problems with older Z series workstations.  PCIe cards with this PLX bridge work correctly.  The new reference code used with the newer Z840/Z640/Z440 workstations came with this bug. 

[Dan_WGBU]

The HP Proliant server group is aware of this problem, and is implementing a fix.  I am in the Workstations group, which is separate from the ISS (Industry Standard Server) group, so I do not know their BIOS update schedules. 

[JochemBonarius]

The issue has been fixed in HP Gen9 BIOS v1.40 (released Jun 15th) in my experience

[Skylarking]

Dan_WGBU,

thanks for taking the time to state that the issue described does not impact our older Z series workstations.

Your explanation is much appreciated.

Cheers.

[fgorseth]

This problem was fixed in HP ProLiant DL380 G9 BIOS 1.40 and 1.50, but the problem is back in BIOS 2.00, 2.20 and 2.22 😞
Is HP planning a new fix related to this issue? Any one else experiencing the same?

[wenzel900]

Hi fgorseth !

Got the same here. (PEX8211 based board in DL380 Gen9)

Problem is, our DL380 got V4 CPU's, so no Bios downgrade is possible (working only with bios >=V2.00)

(Customer a couple of DL390Gen9 with v3 CPU, all working fine, a new one come's with v4 Cpu = our solution is not working)

When we changed the CPU to v3 and downgraded the Bios, all is working fine.

We made a request to the HPE support, and got the answer :

---- schnipp ---

Status: Your case is closed. If you have further inquiries, please contact Hewlett Packard Enterprise GSD Customer Solution Center

Problem Resolution:

• cu has unsupported card that is causing issues
• AHS log to be submitted
• Cu informed that this is a non supported configuration
• Cu advised to test a supported HPE configuration and contact us in case further assistance required

Product description: HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 E5-2620v4 2.1GHz 8-core 1P 16GB-R P440ar 8SFF 500W PS Server/TV

---- schnipp ---

So HPE tells us :

If we have an working system (Bios 1.50) and have to upgrade the Bios (maybe HPE support tell us to do this in case of a support case) , it's not HPE fault, the system is now broken.

That's no sign of a compentent answer. (Becaue the issue was fixed in V1.40 and V1.50 but it seems its forgotten in V2.xx).

Maybe someone at HPE can help us out with fix for DL380Gen9 with V4 Cpu's (I'm not sure, how long v3 CPU's can be ordered ??)

Regards

[wenzel900]

Hi !

Sorry a typo in my last comment :

board has a PLX PEX8112 Chip (not 8211)

Regards