p910-bios-update-and-diagnostics

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.

1. FreeDOS bootable USB image

Source: download page

2. Last stable LiteUSB

Source: FreeDOS 1.3 Lite USB

wget : $archive

unzip : $archive

dd : $image : $usbdisk

gparted : $usbdisk : resize : 63MiB

mount : $usbdisk1 : $usb1dir

3. Fujitsu support

Source: Quick search – keyword: D3162-A1x

4. Latest diagnostic tools available

System Diagnostics DOS (USB Stick) Versione: 4.06.131206 (05/12/2013) Dimensione: 10.43 MB MD5: EA755F40B1156A12A0DC23707BB539ED SHA256: 32EF5E94C820745C19323BC039186E253D7C2153C2F783667C9D8F17C6857D86

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

5. Latest BIOS available admin package

D3162-A1x - Admin package - Compressed Flash Files Versione: V4.6.5.3 - R1.23.0 (01/12/2014) Dimensione 43.12 MB MD5: 0149B86EB671F1F60975E1B40445260E SHA256: 25832921C80C0FEFD8E92574F7138C0CBFFDC11DA0DD5F3FAFF1DCDED49BD881

Source: FTS D3162A1x Admin package

download : $archive

unzip : $archive : ./bios/

dst <= [usb1 mount-point path] cp -arf ./bios/DOS/* ${dst}/ umount ${dst}/

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.

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)

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

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.

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About AMT settings

·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.

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

Corner case settings

Suggestion — provide yourself with an headless remotable alternative way to access the BIOS or to the system, as soon as possible.

WARNING!

Selecting IDG as a graphic card and disabling it, makes the system lose the monitor output. Moreover, removing the CMOS battery even for a long time, does not reset the BIOS configuration. To recover from that situation, I blindly tried sequences of ESC, F3, F4 and ENTER key pressing and CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot.

10. Serial console

Fujitsu Esprimo P910 E85+ is considered a Work Station rather than a PC. The motherboard is an industrial-grade hardware and it is largely adopted for Point-of-Sales machinery or for remote control edge-point for electric systems like shopping mall lighting or fire-fighting systems.

The BIOS allows enabling a serial console redirection which can provide headless access to the BIOS, also. However, it requires an USB serial adapter and a proper configuration. On the client side, sudo minicom -s to configure the serial port. On the server side, as root:

vi /etc/default/grub GRUB_TERMINAL="serial console" GRUB_SERIAL_COMMAND="serial --unit=0 --speed=115200" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8 [...omissis...]" systemctl enable serial-getty@ttyS0.service && update-grub && reboot

These screenshots above show the BIOS remote access by serial and the iAMT access by HTTP via 16992 port.

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Unfortunately, differently than HP and Lenovo workstations, it seems that Fujitsu workstations do not have any hidden setting that can help supporting the Tesla K80.