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HP Flex-10, ESX and Broadcom fun still continuing with ESX 4.1 Update 1…

February 24th, 2011

ESX 4.1 update 1 was released recently which started the investigation again into the Broadcom bnx2x driver versions which are important in HP Blade installations.

Here’s a timeline of what drivers have been released:

  • 13/07/2010 – ESX 4.1 Base install (Build 260247) installs the 1.54.1.v41.1-1 driver.
  • 29/11/2010 – VMware release a bnx2x driver update available through Update Manager which updates the driver to 1.54.1.v41.1-2
  • 29/11/2010 – VMware release a bnx2x driver update NOT available through Update Manager for driver version 1.60.50.v41.2
  • 10/02/2011 – ESX 4.1 Update 1 released (Build 348481) which has the 1.54.1.v41.1-2 driver included
  • 10/02/2011 – VMware release another bnx2x driver update available through Update Manager which installs a 1.54.1.v41.1-2 driver version.

So, there are two Update Manager driver updates with the same version number: 1.54.1.v41.1-2.
The 29/11/2010 version with Vendor Assigned ID: ESX410-201011401-BG has this associated KB: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1029394 and fixes the PSODs which were found in 1.54.1.v41.1-1
The 10/02/2011 version with Vendor Assigned ID: ESX410-201101207-UG has this associated KB: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1027908 and fixes another error message but also confusingly the build information link points to ESX 4.1 Update 1 rather than the actual patch .

If you have an ESX 4.1 Base install and use Update Manager to install the 29/11/2010 version the 10/02/2011 version is seen as a separate patch you can install on the host and reboot. When the host comes back up it however still has the same driver version so what is the 10/02/2011 patch installing?

However, this is all academic actually…

The recommendation from HP/VMware pre ESX 4.1 Update 1 was to use the 1.60.50.v41.2 driver version which supports DCC/SmartLink and amend the heap memory allocation from the command line.

As ESX 4.1 Update 1 includes the 1.54.1.v41.1-2 driver and not the 1.60.50.v41.2 driver I think the recommendation should still be to install the 1.60.50.v41.2 driver so you have DCC/SmartLink functionality.

VMware, why oh why wasn’t the 1.60.50.v41.2 driver included in ESX 4.1 Update 1?

VMware, why oh why was a 1.54.1.v41.1-2 bnx2x driver released on 29/11/2010, then included in ESX 4.1 Update 1 on 10/02/2011 and also released as a standalone update on the same day as ESX 4.1 Update 1 with a different KB article to the 29/11/2010 release yet have the same number?

Check my Flex-10 ESX pre-requisites post for all the current firmware / driver information details to get ESX working with Flex-10.

Categories: ESX, Flex-10, HP Tags: , , , , ,
  1. February 25th, 2011 at 14:25 | #1

    I sense frustration! These things are sent to try us….

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