BIOS updates for PowerEdge CS24-VSS

biosdellwindows-server-2008

We have some PowerEdge CS24 servers that won't run Windows Server 2008. Both installer and cloned images promptly BSOD on boot with an error The BIOS in this system is not fully ACPI compliant. I noticed the ones that did work had a newer bios version. So I've set about looking for bios firmware updates for these servers.

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First looked at the motherboard for a specific model number, but I did not find one. A search on Google resulted in a Dell manual for PowerEdge C1100 that says Regulatory Model: CS24-TY. The provided bios updates for that system (Red Hat version) failed, but at least returned a potentially useful error message:

Your system: CS24-VSS

Further searching on Dell's site or Google for "Poweredge CS24-VSS" yielded no useful results. Nor was I even able to find the two firmware version we already have: S29S3A03 or S29S3A10.

The AMIBIOS displays version info, but doesn't show anything else about the motherboard:

AMIBIOS CS24-VSS L5420

I used the service tag on Dell's support to reach an article that said:

Currently, there is no online documentation for your selected product.

Where should I go to find bios firmware updates for PowerEdge CS24-VSS?

I installed CentOS 5 on one of the machines to run the Dell Server Update Utility version 5.5, however it failed to detect any known devices, and the server log includes messages such as this is not a Dell Machine.

any known devices

[root@centos ~]# getSystemId
Libsmbios version:      2.2.27
Product Name:           CS24-VSS
Vendor:                 Dell
BIOS Version:           S29S3A03
System ID:              Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/sbin/getSystemId", line 124, in ?
    sys.exit( main() )
  File "/usr/sbin/getSystemId", line 106, in main
    sys.stdout.write( "%s\n" % info[1]() )
  File "/usr/sbin/getSystemId", line 52, in get_system_id
    return "0x%04X" % sysinfo.get_dell_system_id()
  File "<libsmbios_c._peak_util_decorators.rewrap wrapping libsmbios_c._common._errorOnZeroFN at 0x09680614>", line 3, in _errorOnZeroFN
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/libsmbios_c/trace_decorator.py", line 108, in trace
    result = func(*args, **kw)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/libsmbios_c/_common.py", line 57, in _errorOnZeroFN
    _doExc(exception_fn, result, func, args, _("function returned error value of zero") )
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/libsmbios_c/_common.py", line 26, in _doExc
    raise exception_fn(r, f, a)
Exception: Could not determine System ID.

Seems like a dead end at this point.

Best Answer

I don't have a good answer for you directly, but these folks http://www.theserverstore.com/content/dell-poweredge-c1100-1u-server-2x-xeon-l5520-226ghz-cpus-36gb-memory-4x-hdd-trays are selling c1100s and claim to have updated the machines to the latest version, so they might be a place to get the update.

Apparently these machines were kind of weird custom things which is why it's so hard to find information on them (cf. http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/servers/f/956/p/19492940/20305446.aspx#20305446).