In order to ensure optimal performance and stability for your Dell system, it is important to be aware of the latest updates available for the drivers and firmware. Dell Technical Update Notifications are a great way to get information on releases as soon as they become public. Detailed information about creating notifications is provided in the following article: Subscribe to receive Dell Driver and Firmware Update notifications
The Dell Service Tag is a seven character identifier that is unique to each Dell product. In addition to the Service Tag, there is an Express Service Code which is a 10-digit numeric version of the Service Tag. For identifying your system on Dell side, at least one of these tags is mandatory for opening a service request at Dell Technical Support. Detailed information about locating the Service Tag can be found in the following article: How to find the Service Tag/Express Service Code on a Dell Server or Storage system
Updates are software files that are used for extending feature sets, life span, or performance , as well as to correct significant errors. Furthermore performing system updates is one of the first steps in troubleshooting an issue. Detailed information about the different ways of updating Dell PowerEdge servers is provided in the following article: Manual Maintenance: Updates and more for your Dell PowerEdge server
Dell PowerEdge 12Gbps SAS HBA controllers with HBA interface provides Non-RAID function. The HBA330 does not support the Raid function.
To benefit from RAID features, please use a physical card such as PERC H730P/H730/H330.
On the Broadcom 57416, NIC ports are compliant with IEEE 802.3an (10GBase-T) and IEEE 802.3ab (1000Base-T) standards only.
This is a normal behavior and functioning as expected. More information is available in this article.
PERC 7 & 8 can be configured using the shortcut CRTL-R during startup . PERC 10 series such as H740 and H840 have to be configured using the "System Setup" menu by pressing F2 during startup.
More information is provided in the article How to access the PERC BIOS configuration utility?
Please check the Enterprise Operating System support matrix.
The default password for iDRAC can be found is this article: "Default credentials for iDRAC"
The BOSS-S1 card is a simple RAID solution card that supports up to two 6 Gbps M.2 SATA devices and allows to boot on the server's operating system. The BOSS-S1 adapter card has a x8 connector using PCIe gen 2.0 x2 lanes, available only in the low-profile and full-height form factors. The BOSS-S1 modular card has a dedicated slot in modular servers. For detail information,please see Dell EMC Boot Optimized Server Storage-S1 User's Guide
In the menu "Driver and Dowloads" of the Dell Support site, use the keyword "NetXtreme-E" to search the driver. More informaton can be found on this article.
With the launch of the 14th generation of DellEMC PowerEdge servers, the factory default password of preinstalled VMWare ESXi operating systems changed to the individual Service Tag of the system. Older systems had no default password set. Detailed information about the changes provides the following article:
14G PowerEdge Servers: Root password and BOSS-S1 configuration on VMWare ESXi factory installations
The CPU Internal Error (CPU IErr) or CPU Machine Check error is usually not an error of the CPU itself, but a sign that the CPU has detected an error in the system, or received an erroneous instruction from a system component. This can theoretically be caused by any system component but is more often than not caused by a memory error. Detailed information about CPU IERR is available in the dedicated article Troubleshooting CPU Internal Error (CPU IErr) on PowerEdge Servers)
Dell’s 13th generation PowerEdge server models (R/T/M/FX) 430 and higher come with both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 . There is a toggle switch in the BIOS which allows the user to either use USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 (this defaults to 2.0 from our factory). PowerEdge server models (R/T) 330 and lower provide USB 3.0 only.
Detailed information about the BIOS settings and the preparation steps for installing earlier windows versions is provided in the following article: How to inject USB 3.0 drivers into Windows Server 2008 R2SP1 for use on Dell R230, R330, T130, T330