Dell PowerEdge R410: System asks to press F1 or F2

Question

We just installed an option card (PERC 6/i) into a brand-new Dell PowerEdge R410 and now the system does no unattended startup but instead asks me to press F1 to continue or F2 to enter system setup after printing the following message on the console:

Fan 4 speed may change depending on system configuration and option card install.

How do I make the system ignore this "problem" or whatever that is? This system is going to be installed at a remote data center and needs to be able to restart unattended. I do not want to ignore errors completely to not get endless restart loops in case of errors.

Solution 1

Usually you press F2 to enter system setup and save whatever changes the hardware upgrade caused and it will stop prompting. It's not like swapping in a RAID card is done remotely ^^

But there should be an option to halt on no errors as well...

Solution 2

"prompt on error" which I inadvertently checked .....unchecking this option in the PERC controller bios configuration fixed this issue for me.

My issue was that I got this message ... "F1 to continue or F2 to enter system setup" that I received after rebooting my dell 2950 PERC/5.....

after unchecking the "prompt on error" PERC controller bios configuration located in the mgt-controller menu option.....

thanks for the tech assist SIR cagenut who answered on May 3 '10 at 22:22

Solution 3

What sort of fan configuration do you have? I'm not 100% sure, but it sounds like you may no longer be in a N+1 fan configuration based on the peripherals you've added. Adding an additional fan may clear the error.

I'm not very familiar with the 410's, though, so a quick call to Dell Support could confirm/deny my theory.

Comments

[hurikhan77]

Well I did that, saved it. And still it persists. So this will become indeed a problem as soon as the server is moved to its remote location.

[hurikhan77]

Well, this really seemed to solve it. For some strange reason we had to change at least one setting and save it in the BIOS to get it update the hardware config - and then the message was gone.

[Oskar Duveborn]

Perhaps that's an issue/bug with that BIOS version and an update is available? One can be so lucky at times ^^

[hurikhan77]

I like the N+1 theory and will try that next time we run into such issues... +1

[hurikhan77]

Actually, this hardware came preconfigured (including addons) from Dell. I'd expect they deliver a working hardware configuration (based on the extra hardware we ordered together with the system) although we had to insert one component on our own.