WARNING: HP G2-G6 server nics killed by firmware update in HP SPP 2014.02
UPDATE 29/04/2014
HP has released an updated HP Service Pack for Proliant which fixes the issue.
HP has released a very serious customer advisory saying that some Broadcom Nics which are used in G2-G6 servers and blades could be killed by a firmware update component in their HP Service Pack for Proliant 2014.02.
Using HPSUM, HP SPP or Smart Components for VMware to update the “Comprehensive Configuration Management” (CCM) firmware version to 7.8.21 can kill the nics which would require a hardware swap out to fix!
I would suggest immediately removing the update from HPSUM or the SPP.
If you absolutely need to update the firmware, you can run the component manually and chose not to update CCM.
Affected Nics:
Any HP ProLiant server with any of the following Broadcom Nics:
- HP NC373T PCIe Multifunction Gig Server Adapter
- HP NC373F PCIe Multifunction Gig Server Adapter
- HP NC373i Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
- HP NC374m PCIe Multifunction Adapter
- HP NC373m Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
- HP NC324i PCIe Dual Port Gigabit Server Adapter
- HP NC326i PCIe Dual Port Gigabit Server Adapter
- HP NC326m PCI Express Dual Port Gigabit Server Adapter
- HP NC325m PCIe Quad Port Gigabit Server Adapter
- HP NC320i PCIe Gigabit Server Adapter
- HP NC320m PCI Express Gigabit Server Adapter
- HP NC382i DP Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
- HP NC382T PCIe DP Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
- HP NC382m DP 1GbE Multifunction BL-c Adapter
- HP NC105i PCIe Gigabit Server Adapter
HP SPP Components
Linux:
- CP018941.scexe and CP018942.scexe – v2.9.21
- CP021160.scexe and CP021161.scexe – v2.9.24
- CP021536.scexe and CP021537.scexe – v2.9.26
- CP021068.scexe and CP021069.scexe – v2.10.15
- CP023112.scexe and CP023113.scexe – v2.10.16
Windows:
- cp018467.exe and cp018468.exe – v4.0.0.22
- cp021534.exe and cp021535.exe – v4.0.0.22 (B)
- cp021547.exe and cp021547.exe – v 4.0.0.26
VMware:
- CP019762.scexe – v1.0.21
- CP021532.scexe – v1.0.21.3
- CP021849.scexe – v1.1.10
Wow, that’s a big one, I thought the days of terrible Broadcom firmware updates were beyond us, I guess not!
it’s a never ending story…
$10 says HP leaves 2014.02 on their web site and 1000’s of customers continue to blow up their servers.
I do have a question about the ‘HP Service Pack for ProLiant Maintenance Supplement Bundle 2014.04’ how does that work? HP has released this as an addendum to 2014.02. Does the user run this to integrate into 2014.02 or do the customers need to blow up their servers with 2014.02 and then attempt to run the Supplement Bundle?
Ben
Ha! I was the one of the first (if not THE first) one to be caught by this bug. I spent 5 solid hours with HP on this issue with HP. The engineer I was working with said he would issue the advisory. That was March 3rd. Sure took them awhile.
HP has released an updated version of Service Pack for ProLiant (SPP) Version 2014.02.0(B) that resolves this issue:
http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/products/service_pack/spp/index.aspx#tab=TAB1
I have recently started following your blog and must admit its really great. I have recently started a new job where I need to setup a new C7000 and FLexfabric. Your articles really helped me. All seems fine, however I am stuck at NIC speed for VMware hypervisor. I have distributed 10Gig as different speeds (VMkernel,Prod,iSCSI and VMotion) via server profile. However, on VMware host 4.1 it shows up as 10G each. Could you please help? What am I doing wrong.
I’m not sure exactly but there could be nothing wrong!
2 reasons, The OS may see the Nics as 10Gb but only transmit at the speed of your Server Profile bandwidth even if these are hard settings. As it is a virtual Nic, the speed is sometimes just a label rather than an actual speed calculation.
If you are using Virtual Connect 4, the traffic segmentation can be done differently where it uses a sliding scale and rather quarantees traffic rather than imposing strict limits. see my previous post: http://www.wooditwork.com/2013/07/24/hp-virtual-connect-4-01-update-minmax-bandwidth-optimisation/