Upgrading HP DL580 G7 from 7500 Xeons to E7s.

Every once in a blue moon I jot something on this blog that I spent a great deal of time researching fruitlessly that I think might help others. I've had one of those moments, and this time it involves the HP DL580 G7 4U rack server featuring 4 sockets for Intel Xeon 7500 and E7 (series I) processors.

I recovered this server from a non-production environment and discovered it had lived a VM life of zero love - was running the original firmware for all of the components. At the time, it was also configured with a Xeon E7530 CPU (Nehalem architecture, 6 cores/per, HT, 2.0GHz)

These processors are both unimpressive and lack a few modern features that the "tock" cycle Westmere CPUs have. The Westmere CPUs are also more power conservative and offer quite a few more cores per socket!

However, when researching the complications of this switch over, I was all but convinced that this swap required a different motherboard. I've seen this happen before - the Xeon Tulsa CPUs had different FSB clocks within the same CPU set; some motherboards could run one speed, other could run two speeds.

https://community.hpe.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-ML-DL-SL/DL580-G7-E7-Upgrade-issue/td-p/6841870

http://serverfault.com/questions/764327/proliant-dl580-g7-e7-upgrade-issue

Between these two threads, I had considered all hope lost. This machine was built in 2010, it was an early release. It had never been serviced or anything. Hopeless, right? Well, I caught a deal on eBay for 4x e7-4850 CPUs (Westmere architecture, 10 cores/per, HT, 2.0GHz) and thought the worst I could do is break even on the CPUs if they didnt' work.

So I did some prodding. Like many of you, I discovered that HP has pay-walled access to Firmware patches, even for machines that would have been covered under a service agreement at the time the firmware was released. Its horrid, I hate them for it, but they've been cruising under this modus operandi for a few years now and they're still making bank.

http://h20564.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?sp4ts.oid=4142793&swItemId=MTX_0f761666783e4f7fae26bc8bab&swEnvOid=4168#tab-history

Under the BIOS section for the DL580 G7 and nested under Revision history we discover than on 2011/03, HP released updates that support the E7 processors. However, paywalled.

http://h20564.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_8680da63a0df49c5893917591b

So, what could we do to escape the paywall for hardware that may be worth a grand all-in? I tried googling for cp015261.exe but between dead FTPs and Russian indexes, I don't believe anyone has it any more. However, if you're HP smart, you know there's another way. HP bundles ALL of their firmware updates into handy "Smart Update" fix packs. I found two that were "accessible" via methods that may or may not work for you - it depends on your appetite and accessibility.

HP Proliant Smart Update Firmware DVD version 10.10
HPE  Service Pack for Proliant DVD release 2016.04

The 10.10 release is pretty dated, but it worked just fine in Windows 2012 R2. This release patched the firmware to August 2011, supporting the E7s but without a quantum leap. It also performed lots of other, smaller firmware patches that simply downloading cp015261 wouldn't have taken into account. Once this package fully installed and reboots were had, I installed my E7 processors. They worked on the first boot, no complaints, no errors, no grief. Once I gave those a moment to roast, I went ahead with the 2016.04 release. The BIOS update gave me grief, saying there was a problem applying. However, after rebooting, the BIOS was updated and a subsequent run of 2016.04 ended up patching the iLO.

This is my story of upgrading a DL580 G7 with low-SKU 7500s to high-SKU E7s with minimal work on the box and a little bit of background effort making all of the right media available. If your shop has numerous HP boxes in production, especially if you've got an in-support G6/G7 around, getting your hands on that 10.10 release shouldn't be all that difficult. If for some reason you have a hard time getting a hold of it, I recommend modifying your Google query in such a way that alternate resources are presented. It's out there, I promise!