IT

Minisforum MS-A2 BIOS Options

Minisforum MS-A2 BIOS Options

Recently, I acquired a Minisforum MS-A2 system and have been experimenting with it in my home lab. Something that’s been bothering me is the lack of documentation about all the different BIOS menus. I’ve also found myself forgetting which BIOS menu I saw which option. To address my issue, I decided to document all the BIOS options.

The BIOS that the Minisforum MS-A2 runs is AMI (American Megatrends International). My MS-A2 is the AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX version. The BIOS version I am running is 1.02.

You can download BIOS updates from Minisforum here.

In this post, I will share my documentation of each BIOS option I found on the Minisforum MS-A2.

Booting

When the Minisforum boots, you see the Minisforum splash screen.

Minisforum boot splash screen.

When the Minisforum is booting, you can press F7 to access the boot menu or press Del to enter the BIOS.

F7 Boot Menu Screen

Delete Menu Screen

When you press Delete, you are presented with an initial menu that allows you to select several options, including Setup, Boot, UEFI Shell, Boot Options, and BBS Menu.

  • Setup will take you into the BIOS.
  • Boot will boot the system normally
  • UEFI Shell tries to load shell.efi from any of the attached devices.
  • Boot Options will bring up a menu to select a boot device.
  • BBS Menu (BIOS Boot Spec) will also display a menu to select a boot device.

BIOS Setup

The BIOS Setup has the following menus.

Main

  • For System Date, you can enter the date.
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HPE MSA 2040 iSCSI Configuration

HPE MSA 2040 iSCSI Configuration

I recently deployed an HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) MSA (Modular Smart Array) 2040 SAN (Storage Area Network) Storage unit in my home lab.

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to set up the HPE MSA 2040 SAN Storage with iSCSI.

The Process

  • Login to the HPE SMU (Storage Management Utility).

The default username is manage, and the default password is !manage.

Network Setup

The first part we should do is configure the iSCSI network.

  • Click on System.
  • Click on Action > Set Up Host Ports.
  • Configure your ports as needed.

In my setup, ports A1, B1, A3, and B3 are iSCSI path A and ports A2, B2, A4, and B4 are iSCSI path B.

Pool Setup

Next, we should set up our disk pools.

  • Click on Pools.
  • Click on Action > Add Disk Group.
  • Select the Type.

I will select Virtual.

  • Select the RAID Level.

I will Select RAID-10.

  • Select the Pool.

The pool selection is for which controller will be the primary controller for the pool. It’s a good idea to make a disk group per controller to maximize the performance of the MSA.

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Passing VCP-VCF Admin Exam

Passing VCP-VCF Admin Exam

I recently passed the VCP-VCF Admin exam, specifically the 2V0-11.25 version, and I want to share my experience with the VMware Certified Professional – VMware Cloud Foundation Administrator exam.

I typically don’t get certifications as I don’t really see the point, and it’s often not a very good benchmark of actual skills and understanding. However, with the recent changes to VMware home lab licensing, to gain access to the home lab licenses, you need to have a VMUG Advantage membership and pass a VCF exam. Due to this, I took the VCF Admin exam and passed.

My VMware Certified Professional – VMware Cloud Foundation Administrator Certification

This post will share my experience studying and taking the VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 Administrator 2V0-11.25 exam.

Exam Details

There are two exam codes for the VCF Admin exam. Exam code 2V0-11.24 is the older 2024 version. Exam code 2V0-11.25 is the updated 2025 version. I’ve only taken the updated 2025 version of the VCF Admin exam.

The VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 Administrator 2V0-11.25 exam contains 60 multiple-choice questions, and you have 135 minutes to complete the exam. You need a score of 300 points or higher to pass the exam. The exam may contain unscored questions, but you won’t know which questions are unscored.

During the exam, you can flag questions to review at the end before finishing the exam. You can also strikethrough invalid answers by right-clicking them to help narrow down the possible answers.

The questions are pulled from a pool of questions, meaning if two people take the exam, they may not have the same questions. When I took the exam, I only got multiple choice questions however, some of the questions in the pool may be matching or sequencing-type questions.

Studying

To prepare for the VCF Admin exam, I attended six weekly 1-hour weekly study sessions. The study sessions were organized by Franky Barragan and were hosted by James Tiffany, Stephan McTighe, and Gareth Edwards. The sessions followed the official VMware VCP – VCF Administrator exam guide. The official exam guide can be found here.

All of the study sessions were recorded and have been posted to YouTube. Here is a YouTube playlist of those videos. I highly recommend those videos as they were pivotal to helping me study.

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I Went to VMUG Connect 2025

I Went to VMUG Connect 2025

This year, I attended the first-ever VMUG Connect. VMUG Connect is a multiday VMUG (VMware User Group) conference in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA, from April 23rd to April 25th.

If you haven’t heard of VMUG. VMUG is a community of IT people who want to talk and nerd out about VMware products and features. There are around 150,000 VMUG members in 73 countries, and I am one of them.

VMUG hosts an extensive array of events. The events range from local meetups to virtual ones and webcasts. In Calgary, we have a local chapter called VMUG Calgary, which hosts all the local Calgary VMUG meetups.

VMUG also hosts larger, local, full-day events called UserCons. VMUG Connect is like a VMUG UserCon but bigger and longer. It’s almost like a smaller version of VMware Explore.

In this post, I will recap my experience at VMUG Connect 2025.

Traveling Day

The first day of my VMUG Connect adventure was a full day dedicated to travel. I had to take two flights to get to Saint Louis, Missouri, USA, from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The first flight was from Calgary to Dallas, Texas, USA and then to Saint Louis.

Once I made it to the hotel, I checked in and decided to find food. I’ve heard of a fast food place called White Castle but have never tried it. Google Maps told me it would be a 10-minute walk from the hotel, so I decided to venture into Saint Louis to find a White Castle.

The adventure to White Castle was uneventful, and White Castle was pretty good. It’s basically a whole fast-food chain dedicated to sliders.

Day 1

The first day of VMUG Connect began with registering and collecting my badge.

My VMUG Connect badge

After getting registered, I attended the two sessions that were part of PreConnect, a couple of sessions before VMUG Connect fully started. The sessions were about Private AI and VCF in general. Both sessions were very informative.

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QSFP Splitting

QSFP Splitting

A nice feature with QSFP (Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable) is that you can turn a single QSFP port into 2 or 4 independent ports using a breakout cable.

In my home lab, I have an Nvidia/Mellanox SN2100 switch running Onyx (MLNX-OS), which I use for my iSCSI network. I also have an HPE MSA 2040 SAN. The HPE MSA 2040 SAN only has 10GB SFP (Small Form-factor Pluggable) ports.

I will use a breakout cable to use the SN2100 with the MSA 2040. The breakout cable will connect to the QSFP port on the SN2100 and give me 4 SFP connections that I will connect to the MSA 2040 SFP ports.

QSFP+ 40GB to SFP+ 10GB DAC cable

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to split and unsplit an interface on an Nvidia/Mellanox SN2100 switch running Onyx (MLNX-OS).

Split Port

  • SSH into the switch.
  • Enter configuration mode with the command configure terminal
  • Shutdown the interface you want to split out.

The interface I will be splitting is ethernet 1/1. The command I will run is interface ethernet 1/1 shutdown.

  • To split the interface, we will use the command module-type qsfp-split-4 or the command module-type qsfp-split-2

Split 4 will split the QSFP module into four 25 Gbps ports. Split 2 will split the port into two 50 Gbps ports.

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Upgrade Azure AD Connect to Entra Connect Sync

Upgrade Azure AD Connect to Entra Connect Sync

With the upcoming retirement of the MSOnline PowerShell module, Microsoft created a new version of Azure AD Connect, which is now rebranded as Entra Connect Sync.

In this post, I will show step-by-step how to manually upgrade Microsoft Azure AD Connect to Microsoft Entra Connect Sync.

Prerequisites

  • Local admin rights on the Azure AD Connect Server.
  • Member of ADSyncAdmins.
  • Account with the Hybrid Identity Administrator or Global Administrator role.
  • IE Enhanced Security Configuration turned off.
  • .NET Framework 4.7.2 or higher

TLS 1.2

With the new version of Microsoft Entra Connect, TLS 1.2 is now mandatory. We will check if TLS 1.2 is enabled and enable it if needed.

Checking TLS 1.2

  • Connect to your Azure AD Connect server.
  • Open PowerShell ISE as administrator.

If your output looks like the image below, then you are all set.

TLS 1.2 is enabled.

If you get an output that says the value is not found, then you need to enable TLS 1.2.

TLS 1.2 is not enabled.

Enabling TLS 1.2

You will see an output similar to the image below.

  • Reboot the server so the changes take effect.

Auto Upgrade

Typically, the auto upgrade option for Azure AD Connect helps keep it up to date. However, I’ve seen multiple setups where Azure AD connect was only auto-upgraded to 2.3.6.0, which was released in February of 2024.

An important item about Azure AD Connect and Entra Connect Sync is that not every version is an auto-upgrade release. Version 2.4.129.0 is a version marked as an auto-upgrade release, but I haven’t seen any servers upgrade from 2.3.6.0 to 2.4.129.0, and if you check the event logs. There’s nothing about it, not even trying to auto-upgrade. It’s just radio silence.

Strangely, the auto-upgrade isn’t even triggering on one of the servers I looked at. I know auto upgrades work because that server has completed previous auto upgrades.

Manual Upgrade

Given that the auto-upgrade is not working, we will do a manual in-place upgrade.

Backup

Typically, manual upgrades work without any issues. However, it’s always good to have a backup. We will export our Azure AD Connect settings to a JSON file that we can use to rebuild everything on a new server if needed.

  • Open Azure AD Connect.
  • Click on Configure.
  • Select View or export current configuration and click on Next.
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PoE and LLDP

PoE and LLDP

For the most part, PoE (Power over Ethernet) works perfectly with LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol). I recently ran into a bizarre issue with a UniFi AP and an HPE Aruba switch where the AP would reboot under load.

In this post, I will cover how I fixed it and everything I learned in this rabbit hole.

The Setup

In my setup, I have an HPE Aruba 2930F switch, specifically the JL256A version. I also have a UniFi U7 Pro Max AP. The UniFi AP is plugged directly into the Aruba switch.

Initially, everything seemed to work fine. I could configure the UniFi AP and everything, but when I was testing the speed of the UniFi AP, I noticed that the AP would reboot, which is strange. I thought at first that maybe I had a faulty AP and would need to RMA it. However, the problem could be with my switch. To rule out the switch, I moved the AP to a PoE injector, and everything worked. I was now able to put the AP under load without it rebooting.

I started digging into my Aruba switch logs and noticed that I was getting PD over current errors on the port that the UniFi AP is plugged into, port 47. The log entry I saw was 00562 ports: port 47 PD Over Current indication.

I double-checked to make sure everything was fully compatible with each other. The power delivery method for the UniFi U7 Pro Max AP is PoE+, with a maximum power consumption of 25 watts. The Aruba 2930F has a PoE budget of 370 watts and is capable of PoE+, and I have room in the PoE budget to power the UniFi AP.

I started thinking that maybe the Aruba switch didn’t want to give the AP enough power for some reason. So I started down the rabbit hole of how PoE works and discovered that much of the magic is LLDP, specifically LLDP-MED (Link Layer Discovery Protocol – Media Endpoint Discovery).

LLDP and LLDP-MED

LLDP is similar to Cisco’s CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol). The main difference between LLDP and CDP is that LLDP is vendor-neutral. LLDP is used by networking devices to provide information about themselves, such as port description, management address, system name, system capabilities, and system description.

LLDP-MED is an extension of LLDP and is commonly used by devices such as APs, VoIP phones, computers, and others. A very common use of LLDP-MED is to detect VoIP phones and place them on a voice VLAN because this lets you configure an access port with a data VLAN for computers and a voice VLAN for VoIP phones.

The LLDP information is transferred in an LLDPDU (Link Layer Discovery Protocol Data Unit). Inside the LLDPDU is a TLV (type-length-value). The TLV holds most of the information about the device.

PoE

With PoE, there are PSE (Power Sourcing Equipment) devices, which are basically your switches or PoE injectors, and then there are PD (Powered Device) devices, which are the devices that need PoE power, like a VoIP phone or an AP.

When a PoE device is plugged into a PoE switch, the PoE device uses LLDP-MED to communicate with the PoE switch to tell it what kind of power it needs, and the switch provides that. This is done using TLV in the LLDPDU and PoE types and classes.

PoE Types

There are a few types of PoE. The PoE type dictates their name and available power. Below is a chart of the PoE types.

TypesCommon NameMaximum Power
Type 1PoE aka 802.3af15.4 Watts
Type 2PoE+ aka 802.3at30 Watts
Type 3PoE++ aka 802.3bt60 Watts
Type 4PoE++ aka 802.3bt90 Watts

PoE Classes

In addition to PoE types, there are a few PoE classes. Classes dictate the PoE type they need and how much power could be required. Below is a chart of the PoE classes.

ClassesPoE TypesMaximum Power
Class 0Type 1 aka PoE aka 802.3af15.4 Watts
Class 1Type 1 aka PoE aka 802.3af4 Watts
Class 2Type 1 aka PoE aka 802.3af7 Watts
Class 3Type 1 aka PoE aka 802.3af15.4 Watts
Class 4Type 2 aka PoE+ aka 802.3at30 Watts
Class 5Type 3 aka PoE++ aka 802.3bt45 Watts
Class 6Type 3 aka PoE++ aka 802.3bt60 Watts
Class 7Type 4 aka PoE++ aka 802.3bt75 Watts
Class 8Type 4 aka PoE++ aka 802.3bt90 Watts

PoE Allocation

With PoE, you can allocate the power based on the device’s usage or class. Typically, the default is based on usage, and then LLDP will communicate if the device needs more power.

I tried changing between usage and class, and neither setting resolved my issue.

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32-bit on Windows 64-bit

32-bit on Windows 64-bit

For the most part, 32-bit applications just work on the 64-bit version of Windows. However, I was curious about how it all works behind the scenes.

In this post, I go down a rabbit hole exploring what makes 32-bit applications work on Windows 64-bit.

WoW64

When Microsoft transitioned from 16-bit to 32-bit, they created a compatibility layer emulator named WoW (Windows on Windows). WoW made 16-bit applications run effortlessly on Windows 32-bit. As part of creating WoW, Microsoft also created the System32 folder %windir%\System32 aka C:\Windows\System32 for all the 32-bit libraries and executables, and WoW would keep using the System folder %windir%\System aka C:\Windows\System as the location for the 16-bit libraries and executables.

Logically, for the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit, Microsoft would create a System64 folder for all the 64-bit libraries and executables. That did not happen. Instead, Microsoft created the SysWOW64 folder %windir%\SysWOW64 aka C:\Windows\SysWOW64. The SysWOW64 folder is the location for the 32-bit libraries and executables, and the System32 folder is the location for the 64-bit libraries and executables. That is not a typo that is actually the way it is. The SysWOW64 folder is just one part that makes up WoW64, which stands for Windows (32-bit) on Windows 64-bit.

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Cisco UCS Reset FlexFlash Controller

Cisco UCS Reset FlexFlash Controller

Cisco UCS can sometimes trigger a false positive alert of FFCH_ERROR_CARDS_ACCESS_ERROR on the FlexFlash controller, which typically has the fault ID of F1262.

Cisco UCS with the FFCH_ERROR_CARDS_ACCESS_ERROR alarm.

Depending on your setup, you should investigate the alarm appropriately. If, after your investigation, you determine that the fault is a false positive, the first step is to reset the FlexFlash controller.

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to reset the FlexFlash controller to clear the FFCH_ERROR_CARDS_ACCESS_ERROR alert.

The Process

  • Log in to the Cisco UCS Manager.
  • Click on the Equipment tab.
  • Select the chassis and blade that has the FlexFlash fault.

I will select chassis 2 and blade 1.

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PowerShell ProgressPreference Issue

PowerShell ProgressPreference Issue

PowerShell is a wonderful tool built into Microsoft Windows. Both Windows and Windows Server come with PowerShell version 5.1 pre-installed.

PowerShell version 5.1 was initially released in 2016. Since then, there have been many improvements to PowerShell. However, many of those improvements are only available in newer versions of PowerShell and aren’t always backported to PowerShell 5.1, even though PowerShell 5.1 is still actively supported.

PowerShell has a variable called ProgressPreference. This variable tells PowerShell how to handle progress updates, such as rendering progress bars when downloading a file.

By default, ProgressPreference is set to Continue, which will display progress bars when possible, and usually isn’t an issue until you start running your scripts outside of PowerShell ISE, as even a headless script needs to calculate a progress bar even if it isn’t displayed, which can cause significant slowdowns.

ProgressPreference Continue

To help illustrate this issue, I created a PowerShell script called download-tester on my GitHub https://github.com/thedxt/Download-Tester

The script will download a 512MB test file from ThinkBroadband and will calculate how long the download took.

  • In PowerShell ISE, the script ran in 35 seconds.
  • In PowerShell 5.1, the script ran in 5 minutes and 35 seconds.
  • In PowerShell 7, the script ran in 32 seconds.

From the results, we can see a significate slowdown in downloads in PowerShell 5.1 when used outside of PowerShell ISE.

The ProgressPreference Continue download slowdowns have been resolved in newer versions of PowerShell. However, PowerShell 5.1 is left behind with this issue.

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