Re: Supermicro X9SCV-Q: no boot options to define

On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 10:48:22 +0100
Gary Jennejohn <gljennjohn_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 08:23:59 +0100
> "Hartmann, O." <ohartmann_at_walstatt.org> wrote:
> 
> > Hello folks,
> > 
> > my apology for polluting this list with a non-FreeBSD specific
> > problem, but since Supermicro is a veryy often used vendor in the
> > FreeBSD user/developer community I might find help here much fast.
> > 
> > I got hands on onto an oldish Supermicro X9SCV-Q mainboard, equipted
> > with an older i5-25XXM CPU running at 2,5 GHz). The AMI BIOS has
> > version 2.10.1208 from 2012.
> > The board does initially a longer beep and the it sounds like two
> > or three very short beeps plus a last longer beep at a higher tune
> > and then the system ALWAYS jumps into the firmware/BIOS screen, no
> > matter whether I set a administrator password to protect the BIOS
> > or not. Apart from the suspect of damaged RAM (three beeps indicate
> > RAM problem above the first 64k block, two indicate PEI recovery or
> > video memory problems if I interpret the manual correctly).
> > 
> > Sometimes the POST screen shows some message like "... in Recovery
> > State", due to the off-phased HDMI attached monitor, I do not see
> > the first characters. Maybe someone knows what that might indicate.
> > 
> > I already have changed the memory banks and the memory seems to be
> > allright as the replacement memory has been checked thoroughly
> > prior to the test in another well running box and I also checked
> > the memory on another box with memtest tool without any suspicious
> > indication.
> > 
> > The attempt to flash the latest firmware fails due to the fact that
> > I can not even define a boot device - either this process is
> > cryptic or it isn't documented and I'm too dull. A FreeDOS 1.1
> > prepared USB flashdrive  isn't bootable as any other UEFI/non UEFI
> > flashdrive: I can see the USB drive as being attached to PCI bus in
> > the firmware menu, I also can define a symbolic name, but then I
> > fail in defining the path to the loader as suggested in the example
> > (fs0:\file\loader.efi or so). Any hint is welcome.
> > 
> > This board has been used successfully over the past years and was
> > equipted with a TPM module at connector 23 (TMP1 header) - I'm
> > unfamiliar with those technologies and my first guess apart from a
> > hardware failure was that the hardware could have been protected
> > anyway like it is done via secure boot. Unplugging that TPM header
> > doesn' change anything.
> > 
> > Also the boot of XigmaNAS latest USB flashed image or any FreeBSD
> > (11, 12 CURRENT) latest USB flashed image failed so far.
> > 
> > Thanks for some help in adavnce,
> >   
> 
> Don't know whether this will help, but a user posted to a forum
> that he had this mainboard and couldn't boot any USB device no
> matter what the tried.
> 
> His final, working solution was:
> 
> <quote>
> Further investigation found NOTHING would boot from USB.  I
> cleared CMOS, entered setup and loaded Optimized Defaults,
> rebooted, and VOILA!  Case closed.
> 
> *happy dance*
> </quote>
> 
> BTW he was using VGA.
> 

Hello,
thanks for the tip. I already tried and did a reset. It seems that one
has to select first a propper boot option and there is the problem.
Once a media has been inserted either as a bootable disk, bootable USB
flash or (not tested) CDROM, the firmware offers at the option entry
Boot the option new boot entry. I have first to give the option a name,
then select from a (cryptic) list of definitions how the firmware
addresses the controler/device/partition/bootimage et ceterum (Select
File System) and then, the worst thing, Path for boot option. Leaving
this empty renders any USB UEFI formated flash device unbootable. For
FreeBSD booting, I had to issue "\efi\boot\bootx64.efi" - this worked
also with a preinstalled Windows10 HOME hdd I "borrowed" to test, so I
do not know the syntax of this option.
Knowing this, I was able to boot Xubuntu 19.04 from USB flash, XigmaNAS
12.1 from USB flash, Windows10 HOME from a HDD and I was luckily able
to boot one time XigmaNAS to install the software onto a SSD and even
this worked - until a certain point where FreeBSD fails!
Starting with FreeBSD 11.3-RELENG, FreeBSD 12.1-RELENG, FreeBSD
13-CURRENT, the box is bootimg and is then freezing at the point, where
the console shows EFI framebuffer informations (see PR 209821, 
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=209821). CURRENT
(r355406) is freezing while showing some ATA device details. 
 
The AMI BIOS is at 2.10.1208 from 4th Nov 2012. There is a newer
firmware available, but I can't install the firmware: while being able
to UEFI USB flahes, it is impossible to boot FreeDOS 1.1 from an USB
flash drive, even having properly set Legacy Boot ROM in PCIe/PnP/etc
options in the firmware. I never have had such a confusing
BIOS/firmware.

Thanks,
oh