WinPE64 on HP DL385

[buddha]

Dear All,

I'm having problems getting WinPE64 to boot on a HP DL385. The machine contains dual Opteron 2.6GHz CPUs.

I've got WinPE64 booting with Smartarray6 drivers loaded, and can see the disks. When running factory -winpe, the machine hangs on the 'Starting Network' phase, and has to be power cycled. I've tried adding the latest drivers from HP's site (the driver file is q57amd64.sys), and removing all other inf files from the amd64\inf directory to see if that makes any difference, to no avail. Compiling with or without /pnp support seems to make no difference. Running regsvr32 netcfgx.dll then winpe -minint also doesn't help - the machine locks up as before.

Sadly, I'm now completely stuck. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how I could proceed?

Cheers,

Paul

[Jazkal]

I had a problem like that with WinPE x64 and another type of NIC. I opened a PSS case with Microsoft. They reproduced the issue and are debugging it now.

[buddha]

Ah, that's useful to know. I'll open a case too. Thanks mate.

[buddha]

Oh dear. Microsoft have just refused to take the case on the grounds that it's HP's responsibility as an OEM. HP think it's Microsoft's problem.

Jazkal, do you have a bug reference I could take back to Microsoft? If I can persuade my engineer that PSS already have a similar case, he may reconsider my own issue.

In other news, I got exactly the same behaviour this morning on a 32 bit Dell Poweredge with a Broadcom NIC. Are there known issues with factory.exe and Broadcom?

[ChrisBaksa]

Oh dear. Microsoft have just refused to take the case on the grounds that it's HP's responsibility as an OEM. HP think it's Microsoft's problem.

Jazkal, do you have a bug reference I could take back to Microsoft? If I can persuade my engineer that PSS already have a similar case, he may reconsider my own issue.

In other news, I got exactly the same behaviour this morning on a 32 bit Dell Poweredge with a Broadcom NIC. Are there known issues with factory.exe and Broadcom?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

An engineer at HP told me of an issue with Factory and Broadcomm NICS where it will crash the NIC or the system when Factory runs. I have seen it happen on a few machines. I have an issue rigthnow where PE 1.2 works fine with a poweredge 1850/2850/6850 but WILL not work with PE 2005. When 2005 loads it does not find any NICS. Have you seen this?

Chris

[Jazkal]

buddha - sorry, I can't give you a case number, work rules and all.

ChrisBaksa - I have seen this on Dell 2650's and 6850's (2850's have Intel nics). I get around the this by doing an ipconfig /renew and pinging a server I know is there, then I can map my drives and pull down files as needed. This is on WinPE2k5 on Dell 2650, 2850, 6650 and 6850.

[buddha]

An engineer at HP told me of an issue with Factory and Broadcomm NICS where it will crash the NIC or the system when Factory runs.  I have seen it happen on a few machines.  I have an issue rigthnow where PE 1.2 works fine with a poweredge 1850/2850/6850 but WILL not work with PE 2005.  When 2005 loads it does not find any NICS.  Have you seen this?

Chris

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When experimenting with PE last week I couldn't get it to see any NICs! This when building with Win2K3 SP1. I must have been doing something wrong though, since recompiling the image fixed the problems. I use drinst.exe to inject new drivers into the image, and it works brilliantly, with the exception of these Broadcom drivers. I'll try and test with another 2650 and see if it behaves the same.

[buddha]

buddha - sorry, I can't give you a case number, work rules and all.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's fair enough. I wonder if you'd be allowed to pass it on directly to the Microsoft engineer dealing with my case? He just needs enough info to make contact with the group dealing with it internally...

[ChrisBaksa]

buddha - sorry, I can't give you a case number, work rules and all.

ChrisBaksa - I have seen this on Dell 2650's and 6850's (2850's have Intel nics). I get around the this by doing an ipconfig /renew and pinging a server I know is there, then I can map my drives and pull down files as needed. This is on WinPE2k5 on Dell 2650, 2850, 6650 and 6850.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I already do that. My scripting Pings the DNS server as a network test. I have even used a GUI network config tool and it shows No NICS present.

I am going to convert my Build from RC2 Binaries to Release Binaries today. Maybe that will help a bit.

Chris

[Jazkal]

I have even used a GUI network config tool and it shows No NICS present.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That is strange. If after you switch over to the final bits, it still doesn't work, I'll give you my step by steps to reproduce my image.

[buddha]

When experimenting with PE last week I couldn't get it to see any NICs! This when building with Win2K3 SP1. I must have been doing something wrong though, since recompiling the image fixed the problems. I use drinst.exe to inject new drivers into the image, and it works brilliantly, with the exception of these Broadcom drivers. I'll try and test with another 2650 and see if it behaves the same.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Confirmed with a HP DL320 as well. These have HP badged NICs in, which from the Vendor string look like Broadcoms too - PCI\VEN_14e4.

Definitely something fundementally wrong with factory.exe running on Broadcom network cards. Broadcom have some blurb on their site which may be related:

http://www.broadcom.com/drivers/faq_drivers.php#79

It talks about RIS but I made the changes anyway, hoping they would help, to no avail. I'll keep looking.

[Jazkal]

Are you seeing these problems on 32bit and 64bit, or just 64bit?

[buddha]

Are you seeing these problems on 32bit and 64bit, or just 64bit?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Both. Which leads me to suspect that the problem is w/ Broadcom and factory.exe, not necessarily the architecture. Of course I could be completely wrong

[Jazkal]

hmmm. I'm not seeing any issues now with 32bit. the only issue with 64bit I have is when WinPE is loaded via the RamDisk (ie with RIS or PXE) on a broadcom nic. I'll write up my build instructions, and see what you are doing different.

It'll take me about an hour or so, I'm putting out a fire right now.

[buddha]

hmmm. I'm not seeing any issues now with 32bit. the only issue with 64bit I have is when WinPE is loaded via the RamDisk (ie with RIS or PXE) on a broadcom nic. I'll write up my build instructions, and see what you are doing different.

It'll take me about an hour or so, I'm putting out a fire right now.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm wondering whether it comes down to either playing with the x57xxxx.inf file, or versions of factory.exe - I'm using the default from PE2005 and standard inf at the moment...

Your notes would be useful - thanks.