Supermicro X10SLM-F stuck at “IPMI Initializing” screen

Technology Tech Support
1

Supermicro X10SLM-F stuck in “IPMI Initializing” after IPMI and BIOS update.

This is my first foray into Supermicro boards and I managed to screw up my X10SLM-F. I applied IPMI firmware v3.88 and then applied latest BIOS. Apparently that wasn’t the correct order as I’m now stuck at “IPMI Initializing” screen with Supermicro logo. The BMC green light is solid, not flashing. IPMI not registering an IP address.

I tried shorting JPB1 pins 2/3 per this thread, but that doesn’t seem to do anything for my problem. Does anyone have an idea on how to reset this board or is it bricked now?

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Did you reset IPMI settings to default like they suggest in release notes?

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Thank you for the reply. I didn’t reset IPMI to defaults, though it’s something I should have done first as admin/admin didn’t work as login.

3.88 release notes don’t seem to say anything about reset.

4

There are firmware update instructions, and it clearly says to uncheck the box. Why I know this? Because, once upon a time I didn’t :slight_smile:

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What can I say – I don’t know why it doesn’t go past IPMI initialization step. Can you reach IPMI via IP? Can you reset settings to factory defaults? Try… Try re-flashing with unchecking the box.

5

Thanks a lot for the hint. I managed to find a reference to this on a random blog from 2014 and someone on Reddit gave me the same tip.

I was flashing via DOS, as I bought the board used and couldn’t log in to IPMI with default credentials.

In retrospect it was idiotic of me to try flashing IPMI firmware before resetting credentials via DOS utilities.

Anyway, in the “IPMI initializing” state it takes somewhere around 30 minutes to get through POST and boot the DOS USB. I kicked off another attempt to flash the firmware, this time with option to reset to defaults. Here’s what’s interesting, it took the machine 2 hours just to verify the firmware files. It’s now been sitting at “new firmware is being installed 0%” for about 10 minutes. This seems excessively long for E3-1265L V3.

I managed to get a few emails to Supermicro support and their take was “BMC is corrupted, RMA the board. Oh and it’s EOL so we cannot say how expensive this will be to fix”.

If the flash doesn’t succeeds I’m going to write off the $50 it cost me and move on to another board.

6

Try these – Reset Supermicro IPMI Password to Default - Physical Access - STH

Don’t try to flash via DOS. Reset password, login to IPMI and then upgrade.

Make sure you’re using dedicated port for networking. From BIOS you can get to configure IPMI networking settings.

7

Thanks, but I think I’m in a broken state now as IPMI doesn’t ask for IP address and is inaccessible. Green LED on the board is solid, which suggests something isn’t right with BMC.

I can’t quite get into BIOS as I takes 30 mins of POST and 1 second of menu to get to BIOS.

If you’re on Discord or Reddit and don’t mind providing some real-time advice, perhaps it would be faster to sort things out via chat.

My reddit name is same as here. Discord is rallymax#9184

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Can you get to ipmi screen from another box connected to ipmi lan port (run wireshark on other machine to find the ip address the sm mb is broadcasting on then set box to use 172 ip address range then browse to the ip address of the sm board and use ADMIN/ADMIN ) -at least thats how i did it. Ipmi runs on its own circuit on board so may be able to get to it even if its not posting

9

Thanks everyone. Finally managed to get the board revived by doing IPMI firmware update via DOS utility.