Title:
Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller 4/DC and 4/SC Firmware Update
Version: 3.28
Date: 7/01/03
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Installation
3.0 Fixes or Enhancements
4.0 Important Information
5.0 Revision History
1.0 Introduction
This is the firmware for following PowerEdge Expandable
RAID Controllers.
PERC 4/SC
PERC 4/DC
2.0 Installation
Performing the Firmware Upgrade
This program creates a bootable diskette to upgrade the firmware of the
controllers. You will need a formatted 3 1/2 inch floppy diskette for the
following procedure.
1) Download the file to a directory on your hard drive. The file downloaded is a
self extracting executable.
2) Insert a blank diskette into the system's diskette drive.
3) Double click on the file that you downloaded and follow the instructions on
the screen to extract the files to the diskette.
4) Insert the diskette into the system with the RAID controller for which you
want to update the firmware and reboot the system.
5) Follow the instructions on the screen to update the firmware.
NOTICE: pflash.exe will be executed automatically and will report existing code
level and prompt you to reconfirm before starting the firmware upgrade process.
To perform this process in non-interactive mode please execute,
pflash /?
and read about possible command line switches.
6) Remove the diskette and reboot the system.
3.0 Fixes or Enhancements
Component Current version Previous Version
Firmware 3.28 3.18
BIOS 1.05 1.04
Ctrl-M 5.62 5.62
WebBIOS (Ctrl-H) 1.65 1.65
Firmware Enhancements
1) Added additional debug capability
Firmware Bug Fixes
1) Fixed issue where misbehaving drive may cause Blue screen
2) Changed request sense length to reduce CRC errors from drives
3) Fixed issue where misbehaving drive would cause the system to hang
4) Fixed NVRAM issue related to downgrading firmware
5) Fixed issue where BGI would run during an NVRAM mismatch.
6) Firmware now checks for additional hot spares if first rebuild fails.
7) Fixed a problem where the controller would negotiate to ASYNC during
clustering if node went offline while rebuild was occurring.
8) Fixed a problem where the firmware would continuously respond to an auto
request sense failure from a failing hard drive
9) Fixed a conflict with Direct I/O, No Read-Ahead, and Write-Through cache
parameters and platforms with more than 4 GB of system memory.
BIOS Changes
None
Ctrl-M Changes
None
WebBIOS changes
None
4.0 Important Information
Firmware upgrade while controller is doing background I/O task
Firmware upgrade process will fail if any background I/O task (i.e. RAID-5
background consistency check or power on auto-resume rebuild and reconstruction)
is being performed.
The program will stop at the "Flash Download" screen with the
following message:
" Consistency Check of logical drive(s) in progress for adapter-X. Failed
Writing Image on Adapter X with Baseport..."
Firmware and configuration on the adapter will not be modified by the program. A
reboot can be performed to return to the Operating System. Wait until the
background task completes before updating the firmware.
Factory Defaults
Prior to resetting the PERC 4 adapter parameters to factory defaults, verify
that your Initiator ID is set to 7. If it is not set to 7, change your Initiator
ID to 7. You will then be asked to reboot your system, on the subsequent reboot
you may reset your PERC 4 to the factory default settings.
Failure to restore the Initiator ID to the original setting before resetting the
card to factory defaults may result in an inconsistency between the ID value
shown in the configuration utility and the ID value used by the card.
5.0 Revision History
Version 3.18
1) Initial release of PERC 4/SC firmware
Download Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.