If you came here looking for information on where to find the power button on an IBM x3400 or x3500, check this post instead.
(Continued from Part 3)

So Tuesday afternoon rolled around. I ran a manual backup of the Exchange server before IBM Dude came around and did a test restore to make sure everything was working, much like I should have done last time. As soon as he arrived, we powered down the server and swapped out the board. After everything was back in place, we crossed our fingers and pressed the power button.

-Click- WHIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRRR

As the server powered on, we noticed two things. One was that the server sounded like a hurricane. With most servers, be they IBM or Dell, when you first turn them on all of the fans will spin up to full power, then settle down. In this case, the fans spun up, then stayed up. We could barely hear each other. The other thing we noticed, however, was an error message on-screen:

1604 Machine type mismatch detected

Neither of us panicked, though – we still had to flash the BIOS so we could put in the correct Machine Type and Serial numbers. The fans were starting to get annoying, though.

After the machine booted off the update CD, I plugged in the right numbers, double-and-triple-checking them, then let it do it’s thing. When it rebooted, the fans were as loud as ever, and, unfortunately, the error persisted.

1604 Machine type mismatch detected

Popping in to BIOS, I double-checked the Machine Type – it was set correctly. We both scratched our heads, and then noticed that the part number on the new board was different from the old one. In fact, after IBM Dude did a little searching, he found the new board was actually for an x3500, although it was supposedly a valid substitutable part. Regardless, and believing we’d found the problem, he ordered a new board of the correct part number and promised he’d be back Friday with the correct part. In the mean time, the server was still running, albeit a little slower and a lot louder, but at least now the power button was fixed and tape was no longer required.

As Friday afternoon came, I repeated my backup/test restore ritual, and once more IBM Dude arrived, box in hand. We doubled-checked the part number and confirmed that it was exactly the same as the original board that had failed. Downing the server yet again, he quickly swapped out the board and booted the system.

The hurricane sound persisted as all of the fans spun up to 100% and stayed there. As the POST messages came and went, we waited patiently for the RAID controller to initialize, and then were greeted with a familiar message:

1604 Machine type mismatch detected

Well crap. Once again we flashed the BIOS, but there was no change after putting in the correct serial number/machine type. Then an idea struck me.

Me: What about the BMC firmware?

Him: Well, I guess we can check that.

So we did! After downloading the latest version for the x3400 (1.29), we fired up the update utility and found something odd. The installed version was 1.41, which most definitely wasn’t listed on the website.

Me: Maybe that’s the problem – this version is probably for an x3500. They use the same board. Let’s just downgrade it.

Him: Err, I dunno. I’m gonna call my support guys and see what they have to say.

After a call in to IBM support, IBM Dude was told yep, downgrade the firmware as the 1.41 version was meant for the x3500 series. We did the deed, and surprise surprise, when the server rebooted the 1604 error was gone! However, the fans were still running in Tornado Mode.