AE_NO_ACPI_TABLES: Is BIOS Update the First Step?

[David Marshall]

Hi,

My boss just put a new server in our colo.  It has a Tyan Thunder K8SR
motherboard with 2 Opterons.  When I boot an SMP kernel, dmesg.boot
includes the following:

CPU: AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 246 (1991.88-MHz K8-class CPU)
  Origin = "AuthenticAMD"  Id = 0xf58  Stepping = 8
  Features=0x78bfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CM
OV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2>
  AMD Features=0xe0500800<SYSCALL,NX,MMX+,LM,3DNow+,3DNow>
real memory  = 2147483648 (2048 MB)
avail memory = 2061676544 (1966 MB)
    ACPI-0159: *** Error: AcpiLoadTables: Could not get RSDP, AE_NO_ACPI_TABLES
    ACPI-0213: *** Error: AcpiLoadTables: Could not load tables: AE_NO_ACPI_TABL
ES
ACPI: table load failed: AE_NO_ACPI_TABLES

My searches have indicated that the most prevalent causes of this are
ACPI not being enabled or an out-of-date BIOS.  The motherboard manual
indicates that ACPI is enabled by default, so should our next step be
just to update the BIOS and hope for the best?

Is there a clever way to determine our BIOS version without physically
accessing the server?

TIA!