Perform an IPMI bios update without a supported CPU

Welcome to Supermicro, where the docs are inconsistent and often wrong. What I typically end up doing is digging around on ftp://ftp.supermicro.com until I find something that seems useful.

In your case, I'd suggest you check for upgrades to the actual BIOS before you try anything else. The IPMI BIOS and the real BIOS appear to be closely linked, and upgrading the real one may help.

From there, I'd suggest you take a look at the tools in ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/utility/ , one of them will probably work for you, even though none explicitly claim to support your motherboard. The 'IPMI FW flash tools' directory is probably where I'd start.

I should note that it's possible to brick the motherboard or IPMI controller by using the wrong firmware flash tool. The only people that can tell you which tool is actually correct is Supermicro themselves.

As a general rule, you should never hot-swap PCI/PCI-X/PCIe cards unless they expressly state support. You can easily damage the card or motherboard by pulling or inserting the card at an angle.

That disclaimer aside, I've had luck hot-swapping NICs, as long as they weren't active (uninstalled drivers or disabled the device). I'd never dream of pulling anything that draws as much power as video, however, or something system-critical like a drive controller, without explicit support.

The trick is that you need to be able to insert or remove the card straight, to avoid shorting any of the fingers. That's most likely what happened in this case, the card was removed at an angle (as we tend to do when the machine is off), and shorted the board.

The difference between a "hot-plug" card and a non- is that the "hot-plug" cards have drivers and hardware designed to cut power on request, thus letting you safely remove the card. In the case of a NIC, disabling the device usually cuts power.