Solaris 11 on HP Z840

[kataar]

Hello,

We recently purchased a few HP Z840's to prototype for hardware upgrades.  While the machines that will remain Windows machines work fine with our Win10 image, attempts to load Solaris 11.3 are running into constant problems and failures.

To give a quick summary, we have 3 different methods to install Solaris 11.3.  The first is via DVD.  The 2nd and 3rd both use an Automated Installer server (essentially Oracle's version of Windows Deployment Server, or in other words, a way to deploy images via PXE boot.)  The 2nd method is to install using a pre-set Automated install (like WDS with an unattend answer file), the 3rd is to use the AI service to perform a manual Solaris 11 install (instead of an answer file, it installs as if from a DVD and requires user input.)

Our machines came with nVidia Quadro M4000's and a pair of SSD's installed (I mention this because I'm not sure these components were part of a 'standard' Z840 build)

From the get go I learned the hard way we had to disable Secure boot, since it thinks Solaris 11 is not authorized.  The problems did not end there.

From DVD, we first started running into an issue where Grub would attempt to probe system devices, and would never go past that and would stop responding to the keyboard.  After consulting with Oracle support, they believed it may have been due to incompatible SSD's.  As a test, we removed the SSD's and installed a 10k RPM HDD.  First attempt to use the DVD to install succeeded, but subsequent attempts to boot to the Solaris installation DVD show that the original issue persists intermittently...sometimes it gets past probing for devices, sometimes it doesn't.

From AI for automated installations, we get past the probing system devices message, but when it attempts to gather manifests from the AI server, it hangs and no longer responds.

Attempting a manual install using the AI server appears to work, however after the installation completes and the system reboots, it gives me a message that fast reboot is disabled on this system, and initiates a total system reboot.  And then I get the "no bootable device found" error.

It gets better (or more confusing.)  On the occasion that I can get the DVD to boot, I go through the entire installation, and then it reboots using Solaris 11's fast reboot (IE: it reboots the OS Kernel but doesn't go all the way out to perform a system POST.)  I logon, can connect to my network and install patches from our SRU server, and everything seems to work.  But, when I power off and power on and the system POSTS, it tells me no bootable devices found.  Even though I was just on a working solaris 11 installation.

From what I can tell and from what Oracle support thinks, this probably has something to do with motherboard or UEFI configurations.  I can't, for the life of me, figure out what's going on and why the motherboard thinks the Solaris installation is not bootable.  Oracle HAS confirmed that HP Z840's is supported by Solaris 11, so it is not that the OS is incompatible with a Z840.  Is there something in the BIOS/UEFI that I need to change or disable so that it will recognize a solaris 11 installation as bootable?  Attempts to find any information on this issue online has yielded no results, so I'm at a total loss at this point...  I've tried setting Secure Boot to legacy and I've tried completely disabling it, same results.

Note that prior to attempts to install, we had updated BIOS/firmware to the latest.

Thank you for your time.