Proliant DL380 server upgrade drivers and firmware plan

I got an email from a local small business manager asking about how to do a driver and firmware upgrade, the email text is below, I thought I’d post it, the process is the same for the other Proliant servers, as always do ensure you read the release notes for firmware and drivers, also consider having a back up, though just in case – this is more as a liability statement than anything else. The links are in this case for a DL380 G2 as this was John’s server, although the concepts are the same.

Martin,
My IT guy is telling me we need to upgrade the drivers and firmware for our Windows 2000 file server, I was wondering if this is something I can do rather than call him in to do it to save money?

Is it complicated and do I need to do specific steps he made it seem quite difficult. It’s a DL380 G2?

Regards

John

The answer is that it’s not overly complicated, there are a few steps or considerations, the only thing to note is if you have pc anywhere/remote control option installed on the server as these can conflict with upgrading the driver pack, but I’ve written that here. This page contains links to documents showing the firmware upgrade process.

So here is the mini plan I put together for John:

1. Reboot the server (just to make sure that it is fine before you make any changes)
2. Download system firmware – this is available here – When it asks to save, I normally say yes and call it the server model, so DL380.exe
3. Download the array firmware – this is available here – Again, I normally say yes to the save and then call it smart.exe
4. Now we need to download the Proliant Support Pack – this is available here – this contains all the drivers and utilities – it’s here
5. Now copy all the files to the server, c:\temp for example
   1. Now log on to the server and browse to c:\temp and do the following:
      1. Run dl380.exe (the system firmware you just downloaded), the utility will tell you the current version and ask if you wish to upgrade, say yes and proceed. Now it will ask for a reboot, I’m going to select no to reduce the number of reboots – you don’t have to.
      2. Run the smart.exe (the firmware you just downloaded), again you get the standard message, current and upgrading to version, say yes and proceed, when asked to reboot, reboot the server.
      3. It will then reboot, the date of the bios will change and if you look closely the array controller will load with a new version or date as well
      4. Windows will now load as normal. However it will possibly prompt to say that new hardware has been detected and do I want to reboot. I say no at this point, let everything continue to load up as normal, and then reboot.
6. Now we run the driver pack (HP Proliant Support Pack). Run the exe that you have downloaded and extract the files to a folder for example c:\temp\drivers, now you can either run the setup which guides you through the process and then asks you to reboot, or run the cmd file which will install everything, the cmd will then close and then you reboot.
7. From start to finish, it wont take more than about forty minutes including reboots.

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