Intel® Server Board Set SE8500HW4 | System BIOS |
10.2 Rolling BIOS
The Intel® Server Board Set SE8500HW4 BIOS can be updated while the server is online, as opposed to immediately turning off the server after a BIOS update. This rolling BIOS features is supported by having two copies of the BIOS, the one in use, and a secondary copy, to which an updated BIOS version can be written. When ready, the system can roll forward to the new BIOS. In case of a failure with the new version, the system can roll back to the previous version. The Intel® Server Board Set SE8500HW4 does not automatically use the new BIOS, a reboot must happen to move to the new BIOS.
The Firmware Hub (BIOS flash) is divided into two partitions: primary and secondary. The active partition from which the system boots shall be referred to as the primary partition. The BIOS updates are written to the secondary partition. After the update, a notification flag will is set, and after subsequent boot following the BIOS update, the system will boot from the new primary BIOS partition. If the new BIOS fails to boot, specialized hardware will switch back to the BIOS on the other partition, thus affecting a “Roll Back”. BMC logs events associated with the BIOS updates to the SEL.
10.3 Initialization
10.3.1Processors
The Intel® Server Board Set SE8500HW4 has two processor
The BSP is responsible for executing the BIOS
As a part of the boot process, the BSP wakes each AP. When awakened, an AP programs its Memory Type Range Registers (MTRRs) to be identical to those of the BSP. All APs execute a halt instruction with their local interrupts disabled. If the BSP determines that an AP exists that is a
See Section 5.4 for more information on the BIOS and BMC interaction during the initial fault resilient booting process.
An FRB3 failure is recorded automatically by the BMC while AP failures are logged to the SEL by the BIOS.
The BMC maintains failure history for each processor in nonvolatile storage. There are three possible states for each processor slot:
Revision 1.0 | 73 |
| Intel order number |