Fujitsu P910 E85+ BIOS update & HW diagnostics

This paper is part of the Esprimo P910 w/ Tesla K80 installation manual serie.

This document provides a guide for creating a bootable FreeDOS USB 64MB drive for BIOS updates and hardware diagnostics. It is specifically tailored for Esprimo P910 E85+ but it can be used as a canvas for every other PC/laptop for which DOS tools are available.

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1. FreeDOS bootable USB image

Source: download page

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2. Last stable LiteUSB

Source: FreeDOS 1.3 Lite USB

wget : $archive

unzip : $archive

dd : $image : $usbdisk

gparted : $usbdisk : resize : 63MiB

mount : $usbdisk1 : $usb1dir

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3. Fujitsu support

Source: Quick search  –  keyword: D3162-A1x

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4. Latest diagnostic tools available

Source: FTS System Diagnostics DOS USB Stick

download : $archive

unzip : $archive : ./diag/

dst <= [usb1 mount-point path]

cp -arf ./diag/*/data/* ${dst}/
sed -e '/\.sys/ s,FREEDOS\\BIN,\FDOS,I' -i ${dst}/CONFIG.SYS
sed -e 's,=[^ ]*\(\\COMMAND.COM\),=\1,gI' -i ${dst}/fdconfig.sys
sed -e 's,\(SET DOSDIR=\).*,\1\\FDOS,I' -e 's,\(%dosdir%\)\\bin,\1,gI' -i ${dst}/fdauto.bat
sed -e "s/%[bram]\{0,3\}DRV%://gI" -e "s,%1:[%\\],,g" -i $(find ${dst} -iname \*.bat)
sed -e "s/bat %DRV%/bat ''/" -i ${dst}/TOOLS/BASE/me.bat
mv ${dst}/AUTOEXEC.BAT ${dst}/diag.bat

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5. Latest BIOS available admin package

Source: FTS D3162A1x Admin package

download : $archive

unzip : $archive : ./bios/

dst <= [usb1 mount-point path]

cp -arf ./bios/DOS/* ${dst}/
umount ${dst}/

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6. Customised bootable image backup (optional)

The command gzip can be replaced to pigz which is parallel - hence faster - counterpart.

usbdisk <= [usb disk device]

umount ${usbdisk}*
fdisk -l ${usbdisk} | grep ${usbdisk}1

sectors <= [usb disk p1 size in 512 byte sectors, biggest number]

image="fdos-p910-bios-diag.img"
dd if=${usbdisk} count=${sectors} | pigz - >${image}.gz

This action is not strictly needed for an once-a-time BIOS update process. It is important for having a long-lasting archive of the bootable FreeDOS image. This archive serves also as a forensic-like record of the exact environment used.

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7. Post archiving image deployment (optional)

image="fdos-p910-bios-diag.img"
pigz -dc ${image}.gz > ${image}; losetup -Pf ${image}

[do whatever you like on loop device 1st partition]

losetup -D $(losetup -l | grep ${image} | cut -d' ' -f1)

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8. Bootable USB drive usage

   WARNING!  

It strongly suggested a cold reboot between HW diagnosys and BIOS update.

keyb it - for the italian keyboard

diag.bat - for hardware diagnosys

dosflash.bat - for the bios update

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9. Default settings

At the first boot, enter in the BIOS with F2 and reset the setting to its optimal default. It should be considered a best-practice starting from the default settings proposed by the manufacturer to apply our settings changes and note them.

About AMT settings

Suggestion — when the P910 is newly bought, then enable the password-less unconfiguration of the ATM sub-system which admin is default password, usually.

   ·NOTICE·  

Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) is a hardware-based remote management system that allows IT administrators to monitor, maintain, and repair computers, even when they are powered off or the operating system is unresponsive.