HP N36L/N40L/N54L Microserver Updated AHCI BIOS Support.

Maniac618

How do I know if it updated the bios? I get this on screen and C:\ prompt after it does something and says 'next please!' the does'programming blocks'. Ran it twice, first time it had some characters in the programming blocks bit, this time in image it's blank.

Maniac618

Ignore above it says 'the bay' and I get the below which I assume is right.  Thanks.

dch97c

Third cable lucky, am pleased to report! - this one works for me:
0.5M eSATA TO SATA Cable External Shielded Lead Serial | eBay

jzaw

first off a big THANKS and a doff of cap to TheBay for the enabling rom

I can personally confirm that

Microserver AHCI BIOS O41072911.ROM

works on the N40L model (bought Jan 2012)

and for those of you running a flavor of linux on theirs, mine being Debian Wheezy, its actually very very easy to back up your current official HP rom (which you should do onto a USB stick as well as disk ... just in case you ever need it) and flash your bios with the modded one

Downloads - flashrom

read the man file (instructions)  for flashrom!

personally i used the svn but you can easily

aptitude install flashrom in debian, instructions for other flavours are there too

and then its as easy as navigate to where you've downloaded and keep O41072911.rar

to back up your orig rom

                                        Code:                                cd /path/to/romstore/flashrom --read hp_orig_rom_20120203.rom        copy that to your usb stick, then

                                        Code:                                unrar e O41072911.rarflashrom --write  O41072911.ROM        all being well you wont get any error messages

If you do error, the kind (volunteer) maintiners of flashrom may well be able to help you via irc #flashrom

if you do error don't forget DONT TURN OFF YOUR MICROSERVER else it might never turn on again, log into the irc channel ask for help and WAIT (potentially hours) ... remember they are volunteers and don't hang on the channel just waiting for YOU

only once you have a VERIFIED message can you reboot your box

any hoo nice to have the 6 sata ports at full speed and ahci as well
note the sata esp setting to allow you to set the ports to esata mode ie to allow you to externalise them say on a pci esata backplate

IMPORTANT
read the man file for flashrom!

and of course just cos it worked on my system doesnt mean it will on yours
you take responsibility for your own actions

hope this helps

cheers

challengedavid

seem to have a slight problem, running the latest version of the modded bios, i cannot reboot the server it does not shut down properly,it just hangs on the shutdown screen but when you just shut it down its fine
i put the original hp bios back on and it reboots fine
so it seems theres something with mod bios stopping it rebooting correctly

running 40gb ssd via the esata cable

any ideas?

mr-b

Which OS?

Also you say that you've put the original HP BIOS on and rebooting works fine.
Does that mean that you haven't changed any of the new settings in the modded BIOS? (since if you're using Windows then it won't boot unless you fiddle with the drivers if you change AHCI/IDE mode)

coolamasta

Is anyone else having a problem with theirs running this Bios when they plug a HDD in and get a BSOD?  

Every single time I plug in a HDD with the machine booted and running the OS hangs and then I get the BSOD but I can eject and remove drives fine with it running, Grrrrr....

lowmans100

The HDD's are not 'hot swappable' so you cannot change or add drives whiles the OS is running.

batmaki

Im having problems getting my HDD recognized by the BIOS after upgrading it... Anyone with the same issue?
The only HDD recognized is the one connected to the free SATA port on the mobo...
Any help would be apreciated...

Regards

jzaw

not strictly true and just for everyone's info ....

with with sata mode set to ahci sata disks ARE hotswappable

using TheBay's O41072911.ROM and debian (squeeze or wheezy) on my microserver and the correct setting on the southbrige part of the bios I hot swap all 6 ports quite happily

of course to do so you have to unmount volumes first if you've mounted them

of course ppl talking about bsod's means they aren't using linux ... maybe their os behaves differently with respect to hotswapping

hope this helps

edit: more info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#Hotplug