Anyone else having to deal with "reported" duplicate SMS BIOS GUID's and/or MAC addresses???

[h4x0r]

So here's the deal...when PXE booting a workstation it displays the MAC and the SMS BIOS GUID-- which I've used before to import a workstation, though usually we just boot workstations as Unknown and deploy an OS through the Unknown Computers collection--but when trying to image this one particular workstation, we noted that it simply kept restarting itself after running the pre-execution hook.

 

Taking a look at the logs revealed that when it begins the identity request, that it is logging a different SMS BIOS GUID than what is displayed when we first PXE boot. This then resolves to a different NetBIOS name (even though the MAC address is logged correctly), which is how I first noticed that the SMS BIOS GUID was wrong.

 

For example, what is seen in SMSTS.log:

Preparing Client Identity Request. TSPxe 9/10/2012 2:50:33 PM 1220 (0x04C4)
Setting transport. TSPxe 9/10/2012 2:50:33 PM 1220 (0x04C4)
Setting SourceID = d25404f6-c37b-4ee8-91c0-c0b6aeaa4cf4. TSPxe 9/10/2012 2:50:33 PM 1220 (0x04C4)
Setting site code = ###. TSPxe 9/10/2012 2:50:33 PM 1220 (0x04C4)
Setting SMBIOS GUID = 4C4C4544-0000-2010-8020-80C04F202020. TSPxe 9/10/2012 2:50:33 PM 1220 (0x04C4)
Adding MAC Address 00:19:B9:24:65:5A. TSPxe 9/10/2012 2:50:33 PM 1220 (0x04C4)

So here are how the SMS BIOS GUID's are being reported for the same workstation:

4C4C4544-0000-2010-8020-80C04F202020 <-- SMSTS log file

44454C4C-0000-1020-8020-80C04F202020 <-- pxe boot initialization

 

You can note that they are nearly identical, with the first and third sections pretty much being the reverse of each other.

 

All of my site system and component statuses are fine...no errors there (with the exception of an AD discovery error).

 

On top of this, we had a workstation accidentally get imaged a couple weeks ago due to a duplicate reported MAC address. Interestingly enough, if you checked the MAC address on the workstation then it would give you the correct information, but the DDR client properties in SCCM listed the incorrect MAC. I ran the duplicate MAC address report and found a couple entries listed, and just ended up deleting them at the time (figuring that they would get added back with their correct MAC's, which they have thus far). The issue in this case though is that the client wasn't reporting the correct value back to SCCM (which was obviously not duplicated based on ipconfig /all command from the "supposedly" conflicting workstations)...which is similar to what's happening here with the PXE booting and the SMS BIOS GUID.

 

So all that being said, has anyone else run into this problem or have any ideas on a solution? Please let me know if I can provide further information! Thanks!

[h4x0r]

I found this link this morning...one of the posts there mentioned an issue with Dell's GX270/280 models which had runs of bad capacitors on the motherboards, and that when Dell shipped out replacement boards for them, that the service tag was not set in BIOS...which of course is what the SMS BIOS GUID is based off of. The ending result is a generic SMS BIOS GUID, so much so that the OP of that thread had the exact same SMS BIOS GUID that I had, all the way down to the reversed sections. We're going to try and correct this and see if that allows us to deploy the OS correctly this time around...will update here when I know more.

[h4x0r]

Fortunately this has been resolved now. The issue was that there was no service tag set in BIOS (due to replacement motherboard). We used Dell's ASSET.COM utility with the /s switch to set the service tag via a DOS booted USB drive. Afterward, the workstation had a different--and correctly reported--SMS BIOS GUID upon PXE booting and in the logs. It is currently being imaged as I type this message. Hopefully this will help anyone else who might experience this problem.

[Rocket Man]

I have similar problems with the GX620 model.........There is a about 12 out of a collection of approx 130 that will not image. i created the duplicate query and everytime there is loads of duplicates all pointing to these machines, there could be as many as 8 duplicates associated with the same ID so tha could be 12*8 errors in this query.....It is very frustrating to say the least, WDS standalone had no problem imaging these machines before SCCM was implemented.....

 

Hopefully there will be a fix for this issue soon

 

Rocket Man

[h4x0r]

Albeit inconvenient, have you verified that all those 620's have their service tag listed in BIOS? I'm also curious about the duplicate query...do you have that on a collection or run it as a report?

[Rocket Man]

It is just a query that I run whenever i have problem with OSD...most of the time whenever there is a problem it will actually give the net-Bios name of the duplicate machines showing one as active and one as no agent installed...when this happens I delete the no agent duplicate machine and then i have no problems....but with these GX620's there is no net-Bios name just a string of letters. have you got a link to this Dell utility...it must be my problem also....

 

select

R.ResourceID,R.ResourceType,R.Name,R.SMSUniqueIdentifier,R.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,R.Client from SMS_R_System as r full join SMS_R_System as s1 on s1.ResourceId = r.ResourceId full join SMS_R_System as s2 on s2.Name = s1.Name where s1.Name = s2.Name and s1.ResourceId != s2.ResourceId

 

Rocket Man

[h4x0r]

I've attached the asset utility from Dell...here is a link for creating your bootable USB drive if you don't have one already. Once you boot up, just run the command with the /s switch, followed by the service tag and it will update the BIOS.

 

Thanks for the query info

ASSET_A209.zip

[Rocket Man]

Sound job...must give this a blast when I get back to office

 

Rocket Man

[Rocket Man]

So i created the dos bootable usb. (do i add the dell utility to the store also after this?)

 

I boot up and enter in ASSET_A209.exe /S xxxxxxxxxxxx

and nothing happens??

 

Must be doing something wrong?

 

What is the exact command I have to run..

 

Cheers

Rocket Man

[h4x0r]

[edit] Sorry...I missed your first sentence where you said you created the bootable USB...I just copied the Dell utility right to the USB drive after that.

 

Also, and this just might be a typo in your post, but the file ASSET_A209 has a .COM extension and not a .EXE...but, if you're actually typing it out with the .EXE then that could be part of the problem