Dell PowerEdge R710 build PART 1/9 | fixes, bios and firmware updates, and factory reset

[@sfcz_gaming2372]

Just picked up 3 R710's from a business that moved to cloud services. My first servers for my first homelab. So far, just resetting them to factory default as you have shown has enabled me to access the system and be able to remote in to them. As well as fix some fan issues. All running the Xeon 5677s, can't wait to keep learning!

[@ArtofServer]

Glad to hear this old series is still useful to you! :-) Thanks for watching!

[@UnkyjoesPlayhouse]

I have 3 of these, and I love them all, wonderful quiet servers..not to mention a powerhouse for virtualization.

[@ArtofServer]

indeed, R710 is great for virtualization with the large memory capacity.

[@NegroRotary]

@@ArtofServer I have r630 that i'm putting together, should stay with that one or get the r710 or combine them?

[@Patrk38]

I don't think I've ever seen so informative guide on youtube. I love it, thanks a lot!

[@basilbrush7878]

Your tip on disabling the memory check is a god send. I have an R815 with 512Gb ram, that used to take 10 mins to boot up!

[@ve-uh7tq]

what do you do with 512Gb ram???

[@basilbrush7878]

@@ve-uh7tq I know it's daft isn't it?

[@jonathanbuzzard1376]

@@ve-uh7tq We had a bunch of those on our last HPC system, and 512GB was frequently insufficient so we went large on the new system. This is idle at the moment, but the main use is mesh generation for CFD. Once you have the mesh the actual computation takes way less RAM. [root@big1 ~]# free -mh total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 3.0T 68G 2.9T 14M 1.6G 2.9T Swap: 29G 0B 29G

[@brandenconnors678]

Bought my R710 last night! Your videos gave me the confidence to take on this project!

[@ArtofServer]

Great to hear!

[@korishan]

Hey, Thanks for posting this video. It was "exactly" what I needed. I was having various issues with my newly acquired R710. You going through the details of the various steps and explaining in really good detail the various functions helped me to get the system operational. I didn't know Amber light on the led display was a bad thing for starters. Also, the tricks for resetting the BIOS helped out, as well as resetting iDrac itself. Thanks for the video!! I'll be watching the rest of them in the series. 😎😎😎

[@ArtofServer]

Glad this was helpful for you 😊

[@constantinvesca3769]

@@ArtofServer You did awesome job, thank you.

[@davsyl94]

I found your channel after purchasing a sas card from your eBay store... I really appreciate the detail in this video...I have subscribed and will continue watching. Thank you so much!

[@ArtofServer]

Thank you so much for your support by shopping at my store! :-) Hope you enjoy the content here!

[@moardub]

Fantastic series. I cant wait to watch more. I appreciate you taking the time and effort to walk people through this process. I like the background music and the filming/transitioning is really good. Keep up the great work!

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for the words of encouragement!

[@guerd87]

Thankyou for this series. I have been homelabbing for a while on consumer hardware and just received an R410 and R710. I have never touched real servers before but keen to learn.

[@ArtofServer]

Cool! glad this helped out! Checkout my series on the R410 too since you have that. There's a playlist on my channel for all the R410 content.

[@asknight]

Don't do what I did and try to update the firmware to the latest directly from the OS without doing an incremental update of each released version. iDrac will quit on you if you do.

[@dukeplc]

amazing you're able to do all that while playing the piano. Impressive!

[@ArtofServer]

Lol. What can I say, I was born fortunate and with cat spirit. May a cat lick you too. ;-p

[@dukeplc]

@@ArtofServer seems appropriate on Valentine's Day!!

[@albullit]

A couple of observations. Its worth moving the fans about in the chassis to check its a fan that is broken rather than a connector. If you are running updates remotely over SSH and you are worried something will terminate your connection mid-update, you could run them inside 'screen'. You may be better in an iDrac connection, but if you can't get one... The order of your updates can also be important. If you have an old BIOS and new iDrac firmware, you can break things. BIOS before iDrac has never failed me since that one bit me.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks! Those are great adds...

[@moardub]

Interesting. I've never heard of the Linux screen command, but I'll definitely look into it in the future. Thanks for the tip!

[@glennosborne4555]

Great work, well explained with live demo for each step. Solid Gold work. Much appreciated.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@questionablecommands9423]

34:56 - For those like me that still want to be lazy (read: hate old Java console clients) and update firmware via ssh, you can always give yourself the safety net of launching `screen` or `tmux` first. That way if your SSH session drops, you can log back in and "attach" back to your previous session.

[@DylanCyr]

Thank you so much for this series! I got a R710 a while back that had a bunch of stuff pre-configured, and I just haven't been able to dive into it, but this video made it way more accessible for me.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks! I'm glad it was helpful to you.

[@korishan]

Completely agree. I just got mine and it wasn't working as expected. This video helped to get it working again :)

[@marksunder4531]

Really good collection of useful insights and help. Just wanted to say thank you so much.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it was helpful! Thank you for watching!

[@omicron0mega]

One of the best servers ever made. Second to the R810 imo. Btw sweet kvm setup.

[@ArtofServer]

Maybe... but I'm loving the R820 though... see my video series kzbin.info/aero/PL28eVGz5vFQ9FoUxcxEUtDddZlV0DbSK_

[@omicron0mega]

@@ArtofServer I can second that, the 820 is a vm powerhouse as well. Gotta love the 9 series power in a 2u package.

[@PeteDiful]

Thanks, Art of Server! Appreciate taking the time and effort to walk through excellent case study of building R710. Caulk full of technical, useful details & convenient table of contents in your comment if ever need to revisit video.

[@ArtofServer]

Who's Shaun? Lol

[@ArtofServer]

Glad you are finding these videos helpful! Thanks for watching 😊

[@makandal775]

I really thank you for this video. i was struggling to update my R610 i followed the same procedures you did everything is fine now.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it helped

[@benbaselet2026]

Nice. I have a haphazard collection of R900/R410/R420/R720/R730/R740 at work with random disks and whatnot and it's just a joy to tinker with them :)

[@ArtofServer]

Nice collection of servers from several generations! Keep on tinkering! Thanks for watching! :-)

[@trustgaming_shorts]

awsome videos. I just got my r710 and I really needed some helpfull videos. :) Thank you !

[@ArtofServer]

Glad I could help!

[@trustgaming_shorts]

I am in need for help please. I did install Proxmox on the `raid 0` made from 2 HDD`s. But I don`t understand why the bios wont boot from that raid, I don`t even find it in the boot option. Please any infos will help alot.@@ArtofServer

[@UnitedWaySB]

I just bought one of these on ebay for $150 for my first real server! Thanks this video is giving me the confidence to get it up and running.

[@ArtofServer]

awesome! :-)

[@UnitedWaySB]

@@ArtofServer $150 after shipping and tax. www.ebay.com/itm/264502135937

[@rustykoenig3566]

For my first one..... I had the awesome pleasure of getting one of the PE 2950's ....... and hearing the JET ENGINE spin up and blowing my eardrums out..... and finding out there was no way to adjust them..... I litterally could not take it anymore and got some resistors and soldered them into the red wire of each fan........ suck out some of the gas and the jet engine monster was now TAMED and my headache FINALLY went away lol. If you got the R710....... you got a damn good machine :) I love the hell outa mine. Fucking AWESOME that the market was literally FLOODED with dirt cheap "trash" as the companies upgraded their server rooms all at the same time to give everyone a chance to mess with em for almost nothing to set one up. It was a fun getting inside machines like these. Built computers since my first 500mz system and I opened up a rack mount server and I was literally lost...... saying WTF is THAT...... lol. EVERYONE who tinkers with hardware should grab a server and have fun and end up with a solid well built machine that will probably run for another 20 years without a hitch lol. The only thing I dont really like...... is that you really cannot mix/match parts in these servers. You can to a very small degree but pretty much better make sure if you get parts..... it jives with the rest of it. Really can't Frankenstein a machine together. But was still fun to mess with em.

[@ArtofServer]

@@rustykoenig3566 regarding your point about mix/match parts.. you are right with Dell. They seem to redesign almost everything for each generation. About the only thing you can "upgrade" and older server with are PCIe cards. That said, this is one of the reasons why I really like Supermicro; they "evolve" their design, so a lot of new components/parts can be swapped with older server. For example, you can take the new high efficiency PSU of newer Supermicro servers and plug them into a 10 year old Supermicro server and all of a sudden you have a cheap server that runs efficiently and doesn't have screaming PSU fans.

[@rustykoenig3566]

@@ArtofServer Ya, All I have messed with so far is the Dell. The first "name" I ever bought was my very first system.... it was a 200mz compaq tower from circuit city that ended up being $1300. After that...... I vowed to never have a "name brand" system again..... it was gonna be my brand. Had the pleasure of messing with other peoples compaqs dells or whatever and I cringed every time I did...... I held true to that untill...... that PE2950 lol. I actually had it in my head that I was just gonna part one together ..... cuz thats what I do...... but I found a loaded one for $150 and got it...... I was so glad I didnt try to part one together lol. I read I dont know HOW much shit trying to find a way to make it read more that 2TB on a drive cuz I only had like 2 drives in its "range". I edned up parting together a tower out of my junk pile to pile my hard drives into and used it for a NAS...... but if others are capable of doing that I might look into something else to mess around with then. Had to get the 710 cuz not only was the 2950 the jet engine...... it was 1 step below the ability to really mess with VM's.... It could do it it just lacked 1 stat to really do it lol.

[@AhmedMohamed-xs5ij]

The Best Channel Of KZbin .

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks man! Glad you're enjoying the content!

[@terjemoen8193]

Can't wait for the next part. Awesome stuff!

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for watching! Stay tuned... :-)

[@shaunwhiteley3544]

Dam! Just seen this and now I have got to go to work 😢. Thanks I now have something to look forward to watching this evening 😀. Cheers

[@robertoquinones785]

Great video! I'm getting one of these servers today!

[@ArtofServer]

Hope you enjoy it!

[@3v068]

The irony of this video is not using windows to avoid licenses and then using red hat linux. Which is also under a license you must agree to. Other than that, great video. Helped me set up my server in the configuration I needed it to be in.

[@ArtofServer]

I disagree. I wasn't avoiding windows licenses, I simply don't use windows. And I was using CentOS7, not RHEL; there are no encumbering licenses. But glad you got good use out of the video. Thanks for watching!

[@SteinerSE]

I've had a R710 for a few years running ESXi ona nd I'm quite happy with it. The SAS drives that came with it kinda sucked (as does SATA access with the built in raid card), but it's been a workhorse. Resently a powerout crashed the datatore raid to degraded and corrupted the ESXi boot media so looking to start over and get it as upgraded as possible now. Looking forward to watching through your series.

[@ArtofServer]

Awesome! Hope you enjoy the rest of the series! Thanks for watching!

[@SteinerSE]

@@ArtofServer I'm sure I will. My machine is a dual 6 core with 72gb ram, idrac 6 enterprise and raid controller (sas/sata2 i think)

[@SeanLynchXY]

Reset Bios to Factory default at 49:00 At system console: 1)Reboot and when prompted press F2 to enter bios 2) If not already on press NUM Lock key to turn on Num Lock. Press Caps lock key to turn on Caps Lock. Press Scroll Lock key to turn on Scroll Lock, . 3) Press Alt+E, Alt+F+Alt B, system will reboot to factory defaults when Alt+B is pressed.

[@Franchyze923]

Picking one of these up today! Thanks for the video!

[@ArtofServer]

Glad I could help!

[@nlay42]

I am new to your channel. Thank you for describing each step in wonderful detail. Very helpful.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it was helpful!

[@staticmaneuver]

Thank you this series is super useful

[@ArtofServer]

You're very welcome! Thanks for watching!

[@woxit6107]

Thanks for your time and effort.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for watching!

[@MotivationalMindset]

So informative, dude, you are a lifesaver.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad to help!

[@SeanAnthony]

Amazing tutoring. Hey I'm in the process of building a home lab. I currently have a unRaid server and I'm looking to buy a couple of Dell poweredge servers to the lab. I have 2 questions 1.What's the difference between the r210 and the r210 ii? I want to use that to create a PFSense router/firewall 2. Is the r710 the best bang for the buck to create a Proxmox server? I enjoy your content keep, continue success.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for watching! :-) 1) Not 100% sure about all the details regarding R210 vs R210-II. But I believe they have totally different motherboards. The II supports SandyBridge/IvyBridge Xeons, while the "I" supported Lynnfield, which is much older and more power hungry. I would get the R210-II. 2) I think the R710 is a great starter server, but I would also say consider some of the 12th generation servers too, like R720, R620, etc. There are some nice options that only cost a little bit more. Thanks for your kind words!

[@InsaiyanTech]

Damn I wish you did a diy server rack mount build im trying to do this my self

[@ArtofServer]

I actually have plans to do those types of videos... just not enough me to go around. LOL

[@MostafaOmidi]

Thanks for the video. Please explain how to ssh to the server as well for beginners 👍

[@elvisabrahamcintomorales3187]

Thanks for your support

[@JurassicTravel]

Great job there thank you !! I just got 2 R740 too and I am about the follow your process and make them hosting my websites. can you guide me ?

[@ArtofServer]

The R740 is a much newer server, so some of the stuff in these videos will be quite different. Just keep that in mind.

[@SeanLynchXY]

You may be wondering... Note@: 12:15 AOS re-installs the Perc6i card while troubleshooting the iDrac card, even though he's planning on using an IT flashed H700 and you may be wondering why? The devil is in the details. While troubleshooting hardware AOS is using care to change only one variable at a time. Also important to note that he doesn't just hurriedly rob the plastic bracket from the original daughter card; he swaps it so his benchtop and bins don't overflow with bits and pieces like mine are :)

[@welbo9766]

Dell support has the QLogic BCM57xx firmware version 8.07.26 under the R710 section now.

[@ArtofServer]

Awesome! I'll check that out! Thanks for the update.

[@fl2rms]

Best find on KZbin so far.

[@ArtofServer]

Thank you!!!

[@goaram]

Been sleeping next to R710 for more than 5 years. Bought a HP 380e g8 recently and had an unpleasant surprise :D It's not possible to sleep next to that one. Fortunately I did manage to silence it in the end.

[@ArtofServer]

did you override the fan speed with ipmi?

[@goaram]

@@ArtofServer yes, but I had to install a custom iLO firmware though

[@TheMchip]

awsome video! thank you for this ! i learned a lot!!!

[@ArtofServer]

Thank you for watching! :-)

[@kbranchjr]

Thank you thank you , mine is on it’s way

[@AndrewJamison79]

I want to get one of these and put XCP-NG on it to mess around with

[@edbouhl3100]

This was a Dell 11gen server with idrac6, no license required . What’s your approach to 12gen machines that require a license for idrac7 functions? Do you buy a Dell license somewhere (eBay sellers appear to be in China) or will the dedicated idrac card port work to some degree without a license? If it’s covered in another video, let me know, thanks.

[@ArtofServer]

Buy the idrac7 enterprise license. They are about $30-40 on eBay. When buying a used 12th gen or newer Dell PowerEdge server, it's always a good idea to ask about the idrac enterprise license. If it's not installed, you can negotiate that cost off the asking price. I try to get servers already with the license key installed.

[@Dragh21]

Hi, I'm interested in buying a Dell PowerEdge server, but I don't know anything about servers watching your video I learned a lot of things, but I would like to know the basics. I mean what equipment you use (I explain myself) I see that you have a rack and the server is on top of it, when you buy the server it comes with the rack or that rack is purchased separately. For example in the 6:00 minute, you take out a screen with a keyboard, that's what I mean, what is that called and that comes with the server or is purchased separately. I also want to know where and how in the 22:03 minute you entered the server from your PC, how do you do it? Is a cable connected to the monitor? Or do you simply put the server's IP in Remote Desktop connection? I would appreciate you helping me, you just won a new follower.

[@ArtofServer]

@Dragh Dofus Touch Thanks for watching my video! Those are great questions! I'm adding that to my list (rather long list) of future video ideas! Stay tuned...

[@hanscruz2189]

I'm having difficulty getting idrac to work at all. I have did a factory reset, I enabled idrac6 lan, I enabled ipv4, set a static IP, set gateway, subnet mask, default gateway and DNS. I used dedicated nic selection. I even tried just letting dhcp set everything. But no matter what I do I can't ping it, I can reach via the web browser and I never see any activity lights on the back ethernet port on the far left side of the server next to the serial console port. I'm positive there is an easy step that I'm missing here.

[@kashifrana6798]

Hello. Thx for this video. Can we connect normal usb keyboard for console access?

[@ArtofServer]

Yes

[@amdtech1405]

awesome series , thank you sir

[@ArtofServer]

Glad this helped!

[@abdenourachab]

Thanks Art of Server for the great video. I have a few questions though. Is Centos 8 supposed to work too? I copied Centos 8 DVD ISO into a flash usb drive and, when I boot R710 off of the flash usb drive, it gives me two options: Installing Centos 8 or troubleshooting. I don't want to install Centos 8, as I plan to eventually install ESXi. I just want to boot off of it so that I can ssh to the R710 server and do the same thing you did. Should I delete Centos 8 from my flash drive and copy the Centos 7 DVD ISO to it? ... Or is there a way to boot off Centos 8 in a way that enables me to ssh to the R710 without installing the Centos 8? ... Or should I install Centos 8 on the R710, update the BIOS and other stuff, then install ESXi in a way that wipes out the Centos 8, hoping that it won't do the BIOS and other updates? ... Please be verbose. If your explanation is too short for AOC to label it as mansplaining, I would most likely not understand it. Thanks.

[@ArtofServer]

If your goal is to update the server using a "live" boot OS, you could use CentOS7. I would avoid CentOS8 for now. I also show in another video how to setup a portable CentOS7 USB boot drive, which is what I often use for these types of updates.

[@abdenourachab]

@@ArtofServer Thanks Art of Server for your prompt reply. Yes, my goal is to update the Dell PowerEdge server. I will look up your video on the topic of creating a portable CentOS7 USB boot drive. In the meantime, if anybody reading this knows the link to that video, please post it as a reply to this comment. Thanks in advance.

[@abdenourachab]

I found the video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bn7TfaaPjZ58m7M

[@ArtofServer]

@@abdenourachab Here's the vid: kzbin.info/www/bejne/opKmaKGpjpaGr68 I demonstrated with CentOS8, but actually I use CentOS7 in the same manner.

[@abdenourachab]

Clarification: I posted the present reply before noticing that Art of Server had already replied an hour earlier with additional information. I am keeping it anyway as it has some good information. I then posted a subsequent reply to Art of Server's reply an hour later. See reply after the present one. I followed the instructions at kzbin.info/www/bejne/bn7TfaaPjZ58m7M and, when I boot my Dell PowerEdge R710 from that bootable CentOS 7 USB boot drive, I run into the same problem I ran into when I was trying CentOS 8. CentOS 7 gives me the options to install CentOS 7, test and install CentOS7, and troubleshoot. None of which is what I want. Did I follow the instructions in the wrong video? Note that, two days ago, I created a live USB Ubuntu 21.04 (daily build) live ISO drive with persistent storage using mkusb, and used it to update the BIOS and the LifeCycle stuff. But the updates of Network_Firmware_PX6V4_LN7.12.17.BIN failed (I don't know why), and the update of SAS-RAID_Firmware_F96NR_LN_6.3.3-0002_X00.BIN failed (many of the commands that the BIN relies on are not in Ubuntu). I will try making a live ISO Centos (7 then 8) using mksub, and report here about that worked or not.

[@kaffeewerks9609]

What is that monitor/keyboard combo/ I like it!

[@ArtofServer]

It's a 1U Dell KMM 17" panel. Search for "Dell KMM 17FP" and you can find it. Or, check here on ebay: ebay.us/wF4Ufg (affiliate link)

[@legionsman7476]

for this specific server and to remote connect you have to have two network cables, correct? one of network communication and another for the iDRAC?

[@ArtofServer]

yes, for this specific server, there are 4 onboard NICs. but there's also a dedicated port for the iDRAC, that's the "iDRAC enterprise" module.

[@acaciofarimare]

could you explain to me how you logged into the linux terminal to download the files directly to the server

[@ArtofServer]

there's a remote login tool called "ssh" and I use that to connect to the server on the terminal as a user. then escalate privileges to root, and that's what you're seeing.

[@fbifido2]

@52:26 - there is more bios menu option below "Power Management", you need to press the down arrow.

[@PLAGUEofDEMONS]

Subscribed, server Sensei. This is the Way.

[@ArtofServer]

LOL.. thanks for watching!

[@chad1vader]

Received my Dell R710 today. Powered it on and received the following error: PXE-E61 media test failure-check cable. Can you offer guidance, please?

[@ArtofServer]

That means your server went into PXE boot mode (probably because there's no boot device) and could not PXE boot. If your server is not connected to a network with a PXE boot server, that's probably why.

[@vidyadhari4591]

Hey, Great Video! I have a R720 server with iDRAC 7 Express which I brought it recently. I connected it to the network but DHCP is not getting an IP from the network. When I try to connect it to my monitor it takes me to the life cycle controller page and get struck. I am a beginner and any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you in advance !

[@ArtofServer]

It looks like your system is stuck in booting into the LifeCycle Controller (LCC). There might have been a previous configuration that is directing it to go into the LCC. You might need to let that complete. On the 12th gen iDRAC, you can't use the dedicated idrac NIC unless you have the enterprise license key installed. Maybe that's the issue?

[@vidyadhari4591]

@@ArtofServer Thank you for your reply! I had a bad VGA to HDMI cable and it caused this issue. I bought a new VGA to VGA cable and it led me to get to the LCC. But still couldn't setup the IDRAC IP for it. As a starting point I reset my idrac setting and tried setting up static IP in the network but I wasn't able to ping my idrac ip after reboot. Let me explain on how I connected the idrac physical interface. I have one end of RJ45 to iDRAC port and other end to my TP link router which is my ISP. Initially my idrac port started blinking while resting the idrac setting through system setup but after its completed there is no light.. seems to me like the port is down. So next I connected TP link router to a switch (Netgear) and then from switch to IDRAC port but no luck.. I am completely new in setting this up and I am struck on here in setting up a IP address to the device. Not sure if my idrac port is working or not as its not blinking anymore and couldn't run the hardware diagnosis to see for any issues as my firmware is out of date. I tried reseating the idrac module but still no luck. I am looking to setup it as a home lab to install proxmox, eveng to learn networking. Or should I install hypervisor and assign an IP before I setup Idrac IP ? I would appreciate if you can provide some inputs hear please. Thank you in advance!!!

[@Nachtkastje]

Hey man, great video/tutorial. Love the work and effort you did. Did you installed the OS you selected for the BIOS updates? So you installed Red Hat Linux6?

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks! No, I have a portable usb with Centos7 that I used for the updates. Later in this series, I install proxmox ve.

[@curmudgeoniii9762]

Thought all the redundacy was to keep system running... one fan goes bad and system will not start?? Do all systems come with this "IDRAC' system/equipment? Are you saying I drive?

[@ArtofServer]

the system still powered on with the bad fan. so not sure what made you think it will not start? it just spewed an error about the FAN1 and lost of redundancy. Not all systems come with iDRAC. the iDRAC system here consists of 2 modules, the "express" and "enterprise" modules as shown in this vid.

[@josephwest651]

Great video. This has been extremely helpful and I can't wait to finish watching through the series. I recently picked up an r710 and would like to update the bios. The current version on it is 2.2.10. I read online that upgrading to the lastest version may cause issues and it was reommended to upgrade to each version in steps. I cannot find any bios versions other than the latest on dells support site. I am wondering if perhaps I can upgrade directly to latest version or if maybe anyone here could provide a link to older bios versions?

[@ArtofServer]

I don't know the origins of that recommendation. As you saw in this video, I just did a straight upgrade to the latest version and didn't have a problem.

[@josephwest651]

@@ArtofServer Saw that recommendation in the dell forum from a dell tech lol. Didn't really make sense to me but I saw it mentioned multiple times and I'm new to server hardware so I wanted to be sure. Thank you so much for the quick reply!

[@lerxtpratt8101]

@Joe Slaughter I just got a used R710 with bios 3.0 and idrac 1.7!!! what should I do as for an upgrade path ?

[@wenger21]

@@josephwest651 Hi Joseph, so did you step up from bios 2.2.10 to 6.6.0 or did you go straight to the current version? Interested to see what happened, I'm in a similar ... ...

[@AxeFxMike]

Its like 5 years later but I just got mine, anything else I should do besides get it up to BIOS 6.6.0 ?

[@ArtofServer]

Well, I would also make sure to update all the other component firmwares as shown in this video. Then checkout the rest of this video series: kzbin.info/aero/PL28eVGz5vFQ9hUBeeg5bxj-s0IeitoGIb

[@AxeFxMike]

@@ArtofServer Thanks so much man! One more thing: You had this plugged in and were touching it (as far as Icould tell) without any ESD precautions, was it on an ESD Mat or are you a believer in that if you mess with them while plugged in that it'll send it to ground? Or are you just a badass? Hahaha

[@TheAwesomeGamer365]

I got an r710 but it looks nothing like yours. The harddrive slots look much different for instance. are there different models?

[@ArtofServer]

Yes, there is a 6x3.5" backplane like this one, and there is a 8x2.5" backplane model.

[@TheAwesomeGamer365]

That explains it. I ordered an r710 with a 4 slot 3.5 hdd and they sent me a 8 slot 2.5hdd with a broken led, 2 caddies and punched in power supply grates. I'm getting a replacement I just hope it's not the 2.5. do you have any good recommendations for cheap sellers

[@kashifrana6798]

Does idrac password will be factory default if we reset the bios to default using hardware jumper. I got the used server and vga display not working so want to reset idrac password

[@ArtofServer]

you need to do a idrac factory reset. there are several ways, for example, you can use the 'racadm' utility provided by Dell.

[@WizardNumberNext]

I have R715 It is quite quiet. Even fully working. I have Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 570 and 2x AMD Opteron 6180 SE and 16x 8GB DDR3 PC3-10600R RAM (it is 290W total while idle) and it quite quiet. Oh and no spinning rust only SSDs

[@dorinxtg]

Small question: Since you're buying, repairing and selling lots of Dell servers, why don't you setup a IPXE server with CentOS? from the error messages that appeared while installing the updates, it looks like your Disk on Key has some issues (sdb1).

[@ArtofServer]

That USB drive with CentOS is the same one I use for all the firmware flashing, you'll notice it has hostname "the-flash". Makes me nervous to run a firmware flash from files on a network filesystem. The sdb errors are not the USB flash drive. I think they are from the idrac's emulated virtual media.

[@whoislongy1849]

My r710 was so out of date but found a bootable iso to do all updates was amazing !! But for what ever reason idrac and life cycle controller wouldn’t update any ideas as I struggle to log in via ip where the page doesn’t load properly or log in.

[@smarticleco7806]

Any idead what the drive size limit is for the h200 you sell on your ebay store?

[@ArtofServer]

yes, 128PB for SATA and 8ZB for SAS. so, practically speaking, limitless with today's available technology. details are explained in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q2aYp3x9gt-tgdk

[@smarticleco7806]

so will the h200 be able to handle 8tb drives. I have a perc 6i in one of my systems and im having trouble getting the 8tb drives to work in it.

[@bobkoss280]

I am fascinated. Very informative.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for watching!

[@shaunwhiteley3544]

Was going great upto 27:30. I’m guessing you have a usb Cent os plugged into the server and managed to boot that up and then ssh to it? Sorry if dumb assumption but I’m only just starting out with Linux. Iv been trying to boot up a usb Ubuntu stick but keep getting no boot media. Any chance on your next video in the series that you expand on this area a bit please? Cheers Edit 35:30 made more sense 😊 Another edit, I should really learn to watch the entire video before leaving comments, I will have another go after putting everything back to default! Thanks REALLY appreciate the video! Cheers

[@ArtofServer]

yes, that's exactly right. i have a USB flash drive with CentOS 7 installed that i move from server to server to give me something easy to boot up with. it has my tools for flashing firmware any many other things. regarding your issue with Ubuntu on usb stick, check that your BIOS settings are correct. notice that i set the USB emulation type to hard drive near the end. also, make sure your boot device selection includes the USB drive. that is usually enough to get it to boot an OS installed on a USB flash drive. thanks for watching! :-)

[@shaunwhiteley3544]

Art of Server Thanks for the tips and detailed reply. Hopefully will be having a go this weekend. I do have unraid running on another box but I need the R710 extra resources as it’s reached capacity. Cheers

[@shaunwhiteley3544]

Can I ask what tool you used to create your Centos usb drive please. Iv tried etcher but that tries to install the os, which actually starts installing and fails with unknown error. Tried Linux Live Usb creator, same error but that failed where it tries to connect to a repository, that with live and persistence enabled, pulling my hair out now 😢 Error setting up base repository. I select the iso file, unknown error! Network is enabled and working. Update, I got Ubuntu’s 18.4 live desk top working, no issues with that. Will try tomorrow the bios update, I’m on 1.2.6 😢. I’m wanting 4tb support. Can you advise if I can do the updates from Ubuntu’s desktop or use terminal please? Cheers

[@ArtofServer]

yeah, it's pretty straight forward actually. download CentOS7 and follow the instructions to make a USB installer flash drive. Then, install a blank USB flash drive (at least 32GB?) in the server, and make sure the USB drive is setup for hard drive emulation in the BIOS. Also install the USB "installer" flash drive... now boot up from the "installer" USB drive... and during install, you need to pick the install target destination; just choose the "other" USB flash drive. complete the install, remove the "installer" USB drive, and boot up on the "target" USB drive that you just freshly installed CentOS7 on. That's basically it. I basically treat it like installing on a normal HDD or SSD.

[@shaunwhiteley3544]

Art of Server Ahh.... when I was trying I had a 80gb hdd installed, it did see it but obviously something is going wrong when trying to install it. I will try again but installing to a usb stick. Thanks for the help 👍. Cheers

[@Atilay2k]

Thank you for your video.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for watching!

[@asteriks_hardcore]

Hi, i am unable to access my iDRAC even though i have everything set up. When i try to access it from browser i get the error ERR_SSL_VERSION_CIPHER_MISMATCH. I have tried running racadm sslresetcfg, which it did not recognize. I am also running a R710

[@asteriks_hardcore]

I hope you can help me

[@ArtofServer]

you should checkout these 2 videos: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqPLhKJvjdFsg5I kzbin.info/www/bejne/p6mynGB3l66eb7s hope that helps! :-)

[@asteriks_hardcore]

@@ArtofServer i love you, thanks

[@EKMTransport]

im late to the party but i plan on getting one of these to run game servers, web pages, and a few other things. the main reason is i want the horsepower to be able to do whatever i want with it without having to add more to it down the road. it would just be a home server/home game server. would the R710 help?

[@auriaksFLC]

Hey, this is really well made video. Could you clarify coule of things: Your Ubuntu Mate is installed in USB? If yes, is it connected to your server or to some other PC (accessing server via SSH)? Also, did you install any OS to server? Thank you very much and best of luck in future.

[@ArtofServer]

Not really sure what you mean by Ubuntu MATE? I'm running a CentOS7 on a USB drive in the server. My desktop is MATE, but on another machine on Fedora (not Ubuntu). I use my desktop OS for the screen recordings where I login to the server running off the USB drive.

[@issasaid92]

Hey, Thank you for making this video series! Very interesting stuff!! Not sure if you still read the comments here but I was wondering if you could help me out. I wanna buy an old server like this one and start leaning about this stuff but I have no idea where to start or what to get first. Was hoping you could point me in the right direction and tell me what server to buy as my first one? Is there a brand that is most suitable for general use? for learning on? or should I just get this PowerEdge and follow your videos? or is there a better brand around the same price that is good to learn on and can last a long time and easily up-gradable if need be

[@ArtofServer]

Sure, I can point you in the right direction. In fact, I may have a server or 2 that might work for you. But first, please tell me what it is you want to learn about with your server? Is it for virtualization? Containers? Storage? Or, what else? And also, what is your budget?

[@issasaid92]

@@ArtofServer Containers mainly. And if I can do both containers and storage at the same time then that's the goal. (As you can see I'm super new to all this)

[@ArtofServer]

@@issasaid92 ok. what's your budget? and how much storage do you need?

[@issasaid92]

@@ArtofServer around $600 if possible. As for storage even 4Tb is enough for now just for experimenting and then I'll add more with time. Thank you for your help! :) Edit: If budget is too low let me know what you recommend.

[@issasaid92]

@@ArtofServer Would it be easier to communicate through email?

[@hmortensen1]

I have a question, how do I reset my r710 so it stops complaining that I have inserted new ram. Is this lifecycle? How to reset? Help please

[@ArtofServer]

Run the lifecycle controller inventory assessment program.

[@hmortensen1]

Got the lifecycle inventory program reset after reinstalling the old ram which was needed to boot to that point. My sas card is not showing up in the boot sequence and I don't have access to my drives. Is there a setting somewhere to enable the sas card.

[@DJGeek]

i downloaded Centos 7 ISO file to flash drive but it wanted me to install it. Where do i download the live CD version?

[@MaxPrehl]

Regarding the Broadcom/QLogic BCM5709 Firmware/Drivers: I found a newer firmware, 8.07.26, which indeed lists support for the r710. It's under the name "QLogic FastLinQ Network Adapter Device Firmware" and you can find it here: www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=82j79 Hope this helps someone!

[@ArtofServer]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

[@lerxtpratt8101]

are you usinga linux on a USB Stick to do the firmware update?

[@ArtofServer]

yes.

[@lerxtpratt8101]

@@ArtofServer and thanks for your answe, greatly appreciated.

[@LordToxygene]

I have a Dell R710 that after suffering a power outage now has an issue with the System Services coming up as disabled. When it boots it says that the IDRAC fails to communicate. I tried to reset the IDRAC using the "i" button but it doesn't help. The fans are stuck at full throttle and I feel like there must be something that I can do to get it back to normal but I can't find any info.

[@ArtofServer]

Sounds like either your iDRAC express or enterprise module failed.

[@kc8omg]

I attempted to grab all the packages for the R710 via the Dell EMC Repositories Manager and it gave me this driver, which appears to be a hair newer than the one you found in the video (7.12.19 vs 7.12.17, released Nov 2015 vs April 2015): www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=35rf5 Thanks for the great series of videos!

[@SteinerSE]

Any guide on setting up the bootable drive you use for the updates?

[@ArtofServer]

Not yet. Will be in a future video.

[@SteinerSE]

@@ArtofServer Red Hat won't even let me register an account so I can download the iso because it doesn't like my email :P Tried to update via the LIfecycle Controller instead, but apparently that no longer works either. Need to update BIOS and NIC firmware

[@theoppositions]

please show how you setup idrac

[@hanscruz2189]

yes please. I'm having difficulty myself

[@hernanc.fioravanti3754]

Hello, thanks for your video. I'm getting a completely blackscreen on my r610 and was wondering whether that means my connector is just not working or if there's absolutely no software at all in it. Thanks a lot!

[@ArtofServer]

sorry, no idea...

[@francisphillipeck4272]

Bro the sims music is KILLING me lol

[@ArtofServer]

LOL!

[@iTzStick]

Sims? What sims song is that? Sounds more like piano man or somthing like that to me.

[@waynejauss5857]

Thank you for your videos. I just got a R-710, 6 SAS drives, a SAS 1068E, and Perc 6/E Raid card. Still getting my head around this. I want to setup Proxmox and wish to know if I should remove my Perc 6/E card. I have no use for external drives, dont think this will allow use with my internal drive, so is there any value to leave it in?

[@ArtofServer]

You should watch the next part of this series where I talk about storage, and later parts I show how to setup Proxmox. Just continue watching this series and you should get all the answers to these questions. The playlist is here: kzbin.info/aero/PL28eVGz5vFQ9hUBeeg5bxj-s0IeitoGIb

[@waynejauss5857]

Thanks for the reply. I have seen all the above, but will watch them again and again until it all soaks in. I'm old and slow but never give up until I get it. Again my question was about the Perc 6/E. Does it have any value to keep it in the server or is it only useful on external drives. I do not have a Perc 6/i. No PD drives show with Ctrl-R. Drives appear when I use Cntl -C (SAS config).

[@ArtofServer]

@@waynejauss5857 Oh, about the PERC6/E... if you're planning to add a external DAS, like MD1000 or MD1200, then it may come in handy, but has limitations with SATA drives at 2TB. Generally, I think it's worth replacing with a 9200-8e or newer card.

[@ChadAmI80]

Could you tell me what the screw driver set is with the yellow and black handles in the background on your desk?

[@ArtofServer]

Yes, it is the Wiha 92092 Master Technicians Bench Top Screwdriver Set, ESD Safe. (affiliate link to that set here: ebay.to/391c7Fd) One of my favorite brand of screwdrivers... they are made in Germany. My favorite screwdrivers are German and Japanese brands, although I have plenty of other ones in my garage too.

[@alejandroquirogaleon6806]

We have an old Dell R310, after a maintence Power off and AC unplug the server never post on again. Just after the idrac6 load, the server crashes and shows cpu register flags... We can go to the idrac menu by pressing CTRL+E but the post will never finish... Any idea?.

[@ArtofServer]

sorry, no idea. sounds like motherboard failure?

[@khadijakhaldi6468]

Hi, please have an issue with Dell Aurora R7, it gets stuck on the ubuntu purple page. And I can't access the grub menu, I tried ESC, SHIT but none is working. Please any idea to solve this?

[@ArtofServer]

Sorry, I don't know anything about Aurora R7. However, I would not recommend trying SHIT on your computer. I don't think that will help and might make the problem worse.

[@jonathanbuzzard1376]

You can do firmware updates over SSH safely, no need to use the KVM in the iDRAC, all these KVM's suck donkey balls and are best ditched as soon as you possibly can. The trick is to either use either screen or tmux. Then if your SSH session gets terminated you log back on and reattach. In fact any system admin doing anything on a server where if your session gets detached for network issues you are in trouble should be using either screen or tmux.

[@ejbully]

Thank you in 2022 🙏🙏

[@ArtofServer]

LOL.. I think we are now in 2023! But, you are welcome and thank you for watching in 2023! :-)

[@Traxano]

I just found your channel an already liked/followed it. Can you please pass me some informations/exp. about resetting the system setup password on my poweredge r720? We bought a used one and tried the pwd jumper, but we might done it wrong and we cannot install from a new copy of windows server from stick. We managed to set the raids up, but I got stuck on the system setup password part /(. Gonna try it again tomorrow, but I like it as it has enaugh power for my file stuff:)

[@ArtofServer]

Welcome to the channel! Check out my videos on the R820 and R720; those will better apply to your situation.

[@Traxano]

@@ArtofServer thanks Server is running well! I still need to learn more about the bios settings (to disable all the lengthy self checks, boot directly to windows, disable idrac as is fails to initialize), but I keep watching your clips and I’m sure it will work:=) thank you and have a great weekend

[@davidrussell8795]

Why get rid if battery and change plug to h2 setup,and why change some wires in dell r720 just to run freenas? Also I just bought a used hp server, it's battery for cache is dead,I think thsts a bad idea!is dell doing the same?my new dellr240 has no battery for cache!

[@ArtofServer]

Battery is needed for RAID controllers that have onboard cache. This is not R720, but R710 by the way... Very different server.

[@raven8432]

Hello I wonder if Simone can help me please, I have an old server a dell power edge r300. So it won’t post and I’m thinking that maybe my processor may have got bad or perhaps the bios got corrupted. I have a bios chip flasher but I don’t know where the bios chip on the server is :/ any help would be great thanks.

[@ArtofServer]

sorry, not familiar with that motherboard.

[@shanewilkes3340]

If the IDRAC was set up for a cluster it goes through a verification process over ip

[@fahadusman3538]

It’s an old vid. Not sure if you gona see the comment. But how did you prepare the centos usb and then boot from it? We’re you downloading the driver files on to that usb? Thanks

[@ArtofServer]

I show how in this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/opKmaKGpjpaGr68

[@seanpatmore3929]

working my way through your great videos, not sure if dell through me a curved ball though, i didnt have dell logo on bootup so followed your video and did the jumpers then booted up and its there, great feeling very confident but now i have a boot error that may be related to clearing the NVRAM it says no sata e detected, any ideas

[@ArtofServer]

Go into the BIOS setup of the R710 and disable any SATA ports that are not in use. By default, if you enable any of the SATA ports, and it doesn't detect a device, it shows that error.

[@lucascanggianelli1979]

Do you think I can go from version 1.20.01 to 6.6.0 in one go?

[@majoraslayer64]

I've been fighting with an R720 for months. I can't figure out if I'm missing something, but does an R720 have a IDRAC enterprise module or any modular parts at all? Mine loses all settings every time the power goes out, and I can't get any updates to install on it. All update files either fail, or they never install when the IDRAC reboots, and if I had any hair I would have pulled it all out trying to figure out how to get it fixed.

[@ArtofServer]

On the 12th gen Dell servers like the R720, the "enterprise" module is a license key you install on the server instead of a physical "module". If you login to the iDRAC, it should tell you if you have the enterprise license key already installed or not. Are you saying your iDRAC loses settings or that the system setup (BIOS/UEFI) loses settings upon power cycling? Here's a video that might help you, and more relevant to the R720: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f4SkaJ1od7CaoKs

[@majoraslayer64]

@@ArtofServer it looks like the Enterprise key is indeed installed. Only the IDRAC loses settings, the BIOS is fine. I've verified the CMOS battery is good, so I'm stumped. I created a script with racadm that sets the settings back where I need to access it, but it doesn't solve the other issues I have with the outdated firmware.

[@majoraslayer64]

@@ArtofServer I did follow along with the instructions in that video. The update versions for the R720 add HTTPS support in the LC starting with versions 2.X. I'm stuck at 1.65. Any version I try to install using the .BIN file under Linux eventually ends with an "Invalid Signature Detected" error. Googling shows that various BIOS revisions may be incompatible with certain updates and produce this error. I have the latest BIOS (2.9.0) and have also tried various other BIOS versions with the same result. I've run the update file under Windows Server 2012 as well as Ubuntu. I even tried the update ISO route (there's a method that uses a Dell app to create a bootable ISO that auto updates everything), but that fails when it gets to the LC update stage. I've also tried extracting the payload file and using it with both racadm and the IDRAC web interface upload, but both return a FAILED status with any version I try.