Power6 High-End System Firmware

12/01/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• A problem was fixed that caused the HMC to show a status of "Incomplete" for the managed system, and numerous service processor dumps to be generated.
• A problem was fixed that caused the hardware called out for SRC B1xxF201 to be incorrect.
• The firmware was enhanced to log SRC B181D30B as informational instead of predictive.
• The firmware was enhanced to list the attached devices when viewing the adapter information for a partition profile on the HMC GUI.
  
• A problem was fixed that caused the HMC2 port on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) to erroneously default to static IP addressing instead of dynamic.
  

• A problem was fixed that prevented the timed-power-on function from turning the system back on if the service processor's clock was adjusted to an earlier time.  This problem could occur during the fall when clocks are set back when daylight savings time ends, for example.
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition to fail to reboot, or fail to boot if it had been shut down once since the platform was booted, with SRC B2001230 and word 3 = 000000BF.  This failure can be seen on a partition that owns a PCI, PCI-E, or PCI-X slot.
  

05/19/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• DEFERRED: This fix corrects the handling of a specific processor instruction sequence that has the potential to result in undetected data errors.  This specific instruction sequence has only been observed in a small number of highly tuned floating point-intensive applications.  However, it is strongly recommended that this fix be applied to all POWER6 systems.  This fix has the potential to decrease system performance on applications that make extensive use of floating point divide, square root, or estimate instructions.
• A problem was fixed that prevented an SRC from being recorded in the service processor dump produced by a host-initiated reset.
• A problem was fixed that caused a reset/reload of a node controller.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to become unresponsive and appear to hang  when page migration occurred on a PCIe slot.
• The firmware was enhanced to improve the callouts for certain types of processor failures that log SRC B1xxE504.
  
• The firmware was enhanced to improve the callouts when NVRAM corruption is detected in the bulk power controller's (BPC's) service processor.
  

• A problem was fixed that caused a virtual SCSI or virtual fibre channel adapter to be seen by the operating system as not bootable when it was added to a partition using a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operation.
• In partitions running AIX or Linux, a problem was fixed that caused the addition of an I/O slot to a partition using a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) add operation to fail.
• On systems running redundant VIOS partitions, a problem was fixed that prevented Ethernet traffic from being properly bridged between the two partitions.  This problem also prevented shared Ethernet adapter failover from working correctly.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B7000103 when a concurrent maintenance operation was performed on an I/O slot directly from a partition (using AIX SMIT or IBM i HST).
• A problem was fixed that caused a system or partition running Linux to crash when the "serv_config -l" command was run.
• On systems running active memory sharing (AMS), the firmware was enhanced so that error messages indicating "out of compliance" issues with the memory (HMC SRC HSCL031F) will not be generated if the user allocates more memory than is installed in the system.  (Allocating more memory than is installed in the system is supported in active memory sharing.)
• On systems using InfiniBand switches for processor clustering, a problem was fixed that caused InfiniBand ports to intermittently drop out.
• A problem was fixed that caused the hypervisor to loop unnecessarily and consume too many processor cycles.  This impacted the performance of the system.
  

• A problem was fixed that caused the concurrent addition of a node to fail with SRC B181A422.
• A problem was fixed that caused unpredictable system behavior if a capacity on demand (CoD) or a virtualization engine technology (VET) activation code was entered and accepted after a node 0 evacuation was done.  The unpredictable machine behavior might also have occurred, if a node 0 evacuation failed, a system dump was taken, and a memory-preserving IPL was then initiated.
• A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent maintenance operation after a node evacuation to fail.  When this problem occurred, the system erroneously states that a platform memory dump is pending.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a concurrent maintenance operation from completing successfully.
• On systems with F/C 5803 or F/C 5873 I/O drawers attached and a boot device in the drawer, a problem was fixed that prevented a partition from booting after the concurrent repair of the GX adapter that connects the 5802 or 5877 drawer to the system, or to the node that contains the GX adapter.

12/16/09

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that might cause the system to crash if the server is running AIX  and has a F/C 5802 or 5877 drawer (in a 19" rack), or F/C  5803 or 5873 drawer (in a 24"rack), attached.
• On systems with a lot of memory, the firmware was enhanced to reduce the time partition migrations take from hours to minutes.
• A problem was fixed that might cause the system to crash with SRC B181E504, then SRC B1813909, being logged.
• The firmware was enhanced such that SRCs B181F126, B181F127, and B181F129 are correctly handled, and no longer cause unnecessary calls home to be made.
• The firmware was enhanced such that SRC B1817201, when generated by a bulk power controller (BPC), is correctly handled.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to hang with SRCs B182953C, B182954C, and B17BE434 being logged.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC 10009135, followed by 10009139, to be erroneously logged.  These SRCs indicate a system power control network (SPCN) loop is being broken, then re-established.
• The firmware was enhanced to allow a temporary threshold reduction for processor unit book interconnect predictive errors.

•  On a single system running Oracle in multiple partitions, with multiple IBM LHCAs connected in the same subnet, a problem was fixed that caused the remaining partitions to lose their reliable datagram socket (RDS) heartbeat connections after the reboot of a single partition.  There is a greater probability of encountering this problem if the partition being rebooted has a large partition memory assigned to it.

•  On systems with four nodes, a problem was fixed that caused the system controller to perform a reset/reload, which caused a concurrent maintenance operation to fail, on the fourth node (P4).
•  A problem was fixed that caused the concurrent replacement of an InfiniBand GX adapter or I/O planar to fail if a partition owned an embedded device on the planar.
• The firmware was enhanced such that if an Ethernet cable is misplugged on a node controller during a concurrent node add operation, the node add operation will be completed successfully. 

09/23/09

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• DEFERRED:  The firmware was enhanced to eliminate correctable errors (CEs) being erroneously logged against the memory bus with SRC B124E504.  This change affects only 9117-MMA systems equipped with 4.2GHz quad core processor cards (FC 7540) and all 8234-EMA systems.  This change is not critical.
• The firmware was enhanced such that SRC B181F126 is correctly managed, and no longer calls home  unnecessarily for this problem.

08/20/09

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• DEFERRED:  This fix corrects the handling of a specific processor instruction sequence that was generated on a particular heavily-tuned High Performance Computing (HPC) application. This specific instruction sequence has the potential to produce an incorrect result. This instruction sequence has only been observed in a single HPC application.  However, it is strongly recommended that you apply this fix. 
• The firmware was enhanced such that a generic B1817201 SRC will no longer be logged when a cache error occurs on a node controller (NC).  Unique SRCs will now be logged for cache failures, and upper and lower thresholds have been added to the NC cache error logging scheme. 

• HIPER for systems with F/C 5803 or 5873 drawers attached:  A problem was fixed that prevented node concurrent maintenance operations on systems with F/C 5803 or 5873 drawers attached to them.
• On systems with F/C 5802 or 5877 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that prevented an I/O slot's power LED from accurately reflecting the state of the I/O slot in a 5802 or 5877 drawer, under certain circumstances.
• A problem was fixed that under certain rare circumstances caused a partition to crash when a 24" InfiniBand I/O drawer (feature code 5797 or 5798) drawer was concurrently added.  When this problem occurred, rebooting the system was required to recover.
• On systems running system firmware EH340_075 and Active Memory Sharing, a problem was fixed that might have caused a partition to lose I/O entitlement after the partition was moved from one system to another using PowerVM Mobility.
• On systems running system firmware EH340_075 and Active Memory Sharing, a problem was fixed that might have caused a partition to fail to boot with SRC B700F103 if the partition had more than 24 virtual processors assigned to it.
• On systems running system firmware release EH340, a problem was fixed that might have caused the I/O performance to be degraded if a node evacuation operation was performed (as part of a concurrent maintenance operation to fix a failing I/O adapter or drawer) after the repair was complete.
• On systems with external I/O towers attached, the firmware was enhanced so that the system will not crash when SRC B7006981 is logged for certain types of I/O hardware failures. 

• A problem was fixed that might have caused the performance of an I/O loop (attached to a 12X I/O adapter) to be degraded if a B7006982, B7006984, B7006985, B70069F2, B70069F3, or B70069F4 SRC is logged after a concurrent maintenance operation on that loop.
• A problem was fixed that caused concurrent maintenance operations on memory DIMMs to fail if the replacement DIMMs were functionally equivalent to the original DIMMs, but did not have the same CCIN (customer card identification number).
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1xxB889 SRCs to be erroneously logged during a node evacuation operation.  (Node evacuation is one step in a concurrent maintenance operation on a node.)
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash during a hot node or GX adapter repair with certain hardware configurations.
• A problem was fixed that caused replacement of a system controller with power off, and the system at standby, to fail.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash during a hot node repair or upgrade.

05/26/09

New features and functions: 

- DEFERRED: Support for F/C 5803 (24" I/O drawer) and F/C 5873 (diskless 24" I/O drawer).

Attention: After this level of firmware is installed, the platform must be powered off, then powered on, before the 5803 or 5873 I/O drawer is added to the system.

- DEFERRED: Support for POWER VM Active Memory Sharing.

Attention: After this level of firmware is installed, the platform must be powered off, then powered on to activate the POWER VM Active Memory Sharing function.

Attention: If EH340_075 has been installed, and the new POWER VM Active Memory Sharing function has been activated, and you want to back-level the system firmware, the active memory sharing pool must be deactivated and deleted prior to back-leveling the system firmware. IBM does not recommend back-leveling the system firmware.

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused a system to fail to reboot after a B1xxE504 SRC was logged, due to a processor interconnection bus failure. The same SRC, B1xxE504, was logged when the reboot failed.
• A problem was fixed that caused non-terminating SRCs (such as B1818A1E) that indicate registry read errors to be logged during a disruptive installation of system firmware.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the system from powering on after the "reset service processor settings" or "reset all settings" option was selected in the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus.
• A problem was fixed that caused the detailed data at the end of an "early power off warning type 5" AIX error log entry to be filled with invalid data instead of zeros.
• A problem was fixed that caused the secondary system controller to reset/reload with SRC B1xxB741 being logged, if the system controller lost the communication path to one of the node controllers.
• A problem was fixed that prevented all of the necessary files from being synchronized between the primary and the secondary service processors. One possible symptom of this problem was the time-of-day clocks being out of synch after a service processor failover.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1818601 to be logged, and a service processor dump to be generated, at runtime.
• A problem was fixed that caused the number of empty GX adapter slots displayed by the advanced system management interface (ASMI) to be incorrect.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a newly installed 12X I/O adapter from being recognized if the system controller was at standby, and the newly installed adapter was a 12X RIO adapter and the previous adapter was a 12X InfiniBand adapter, or vice-versa.
• The firmware was enhanced so that SRC B1xxE458 (with word 6=0000E42B) will be logged as informational instead of generating a call home.
• The firmware was enhanced such that error logs with relevant information will be created when a system crashes under certain circumstances, rather than a generic SRC (B1813410), with very little debug information, being logged.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to hang when terminating if the system had been in power save mode.
• The firmware was enhanced so that if the secondary system controller remains hung after the primary system controller successfully boots, a predictive error will be logged, and a call home will be made.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B181D312, and a call home to be made, when a bulk power controller (BPC) and a hardware management console (HMC) are temporarily disconnected.
• The firmware was enhanced such that if an attempt is made to enable redundancy when the system is booting, the error log entry that is made will be informational instead of predictive.
• The firmware was enhanced so that a call home will be made if the hypervisor issues a "terminate immediate" interrupt. 
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC 11001D12 to be erroneously logged when the system was booting.
• A problem was fixed that caused incorrect field replaceable unit (FRU) part numbers to be returned for the BPA scroll assembly, UEPO panel and the CEC MDA scroll assembly.
• The firmware was enhanced so that the service processor only logs SRC B1A38B24 when a valid network set up error is found. The callouts for this SRC were also improved.
• The firmware was enhanced so that SRCs B181720D, B1818A13, and B1818A0F, and occasionally a service processor dump, will not be generated when the service processor's two Ethernet interfaces are on the same subnet. (This is an invalid configuration.)
• A problem was fixed that caused a system with I/O drawers attached to crash, and a SYSDUMP to be taken, with SRCs B7000103 and SRC B181D138 being logged.  Another symptom of this failure is informational SRC B7006970 entries constantly posting in the iqyylog.log.

• In systems using InfiniBand switches for processor clustering, a problem was fixed that caused packets to be dropped under certain circumstances.
• On systems running firmware release EH340, a problem was fixed that caused data in the platform dump to be invalid.
• On systems with five or more nodes, a problem was fixed that prevented the identify LED function from turning on the correct node's LED.
• On systems with a large number of I/O drawers, a communication problem was fixed that caused unnecessary system controller failovers, unnecessary reset/reloads, and unnecessary dumps, and SRC B181F105 to be logged.
• On systems with a large number of I/O drawers, the firmware was enhanced to reduce the boot time.

• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused SRC B150A422 to be erroneously logged, and the advanced system management interface (ASMI) to erroneously show deconfigured processor cores, if system firmware was installed while a node was deactivated due a concurrent maintenance operation.
• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused SRC B181B171 to be logged, and the system to crash, during a concurrent node repair or concurrent GX adapter repair.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a concurrent add or repair of a GX adapter from being re-attempted if a reset/reload of the primary system controller occurred during the GX add part of the initial procedure.
• A problem was fixed that might cause a concurrent node repair, a concurrent I/O expansion unit repair, a concurrent PCI slot repair, or a DLPAR removal or moving of I/O slots to fail if the I/O hardware involved is in a failed state.
• A problem was fixed that caused a hot node repair operation to fail if 16GB huge pages were configured on the system.
• On systems using on/off (temporary) memory capacity on demand (COD), the firmware was enhanced to improve memory COD's interaction with other tools (such as Inventory Scout in AIX), and to make the billing process easier.
• A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent node add or repair operation to fail if the operation immediately followed an upgrade of system firmware from EH330_xxx to EH340_039, then a concurrent installation of EH340_061.

04/20/09

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus to become unresponsive, and the system to appear to hang, when a GX adapter slot reservation was attempted when the system was at service processor standby.
• A problem was fixed that caused the service processor diagnostics to report a "TOD (time-of-day) overflow" error, instead of an uncorrectable memory error, when failures occurred on memory DIMMs.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the service processor from automatically booting from the permanent (or P) side if the temporary (or T) side of the firmware flash was corrupted. When the problem occurred, the service processor stopped instead of booting from the P side.
• A problem was fixed that might have caused the system to crash when a processor was dynamically removed when the system was running. If the system is running the EH340 release of system firmware, this problem can also occur during a concurrent maintenance operation.
• The firmware was enhanced such that data corruption in the Anchor (VPD) will be corrected by the firmware, rather than having to have the Anchor card replaced.
• A problem was fixed that caused non-terminating SRCs (such as B1818A1E) that indicate registry read errors to be logged during a disruptive installation of system firmware.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the system from powering on after the "reset to factory settings" option was selected in the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus.
• The firmware was enhanced to improve the service processor's capability to recover from bad bits in the flash memory. A predictive error, or an unrecoverable error, will be logged against the card that contains the system firmware if the number of correctable or uncorrectable errors exceeds the threshold.
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition being migrated to crash on the target system.
• On systems running the EH340 release of system firmware, a problem was fixed that caused an abort code to be logged in the virtual input/output system (VIOS) error log on the source system after a successful partition migration.
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition being migrated to become unresponsive on the target system when firmware-assisted dump was enabled.
• The firmware was enhanced so that SRC BA210012 will not generate a call home when logged.
• The callouts for SRC B181E6ED, which is logged when a system is booted with service processor redundancy disabled, were improved to indicate that redundancy was disabled rather than calling out a firmware failure.
• A problem was fixed that caused hardware to be deconfigured when the system encountered network errors, even though the SRCs were being logged as informational.
• A problem was fixed that prevented all of the necessary files from being synchronized between the primary and secondary service processors. One possible symptom of this problem was the time-of-day clocks being out of synch after a service processor failover.

• On systems with firmware release EH340 installed, a problem was fixed that caused a system firmware installation to fail with SRC E302F9D3 being erroneously logged.
• On systems with 16GB DIMMs and firmware release EH340 installed, a problem was fixed that caused prevented the concurrent replacement of a distributed converter assembly (DCA) in a processor node.
• On systems with external I/O drawers, a problem was fixed that could cause the system to hang on checkpoint C700406E during a "warm" reboot (a reboot in which the processor drawer is power-cycled but the I/O drawers are not).
• On systems running system firmware release EH340 and IBM i partitions, a problem was fixed that caused message CPF9E7F, CPF9E2D or CPF9E5E (which indicates a licensing key problem) to be received by the IBM i partitions when the number of physical processors was greater than the number of IBM i licenses.
• On systems with virtual fiber channel disks, a problem was fixed that prevented the system management services (SMS) from displaying the virtual fiber channel disks if the virtual fiber channel server reported that any of them were reserved. 

• DEFERRED: On systems running system firmware release EH340, a problem was fixed that caused the system to checkstop during the "hot add" of a GX I/O adapter card.
• A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent maintenance operation to be halted with SRC B181A433 being logged.
• A problem was fixed that caused concurrent maintenance operations, if attempted immediately after a disruptive firmware installation, to be disabled.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B150D15E to be erroneously logged during a concurrent node addition or concurrent memory upgrade.
• On systems with five or more processor nodes, a problem was fixed that identifies the wrong node LED.
• A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent processor add operation, after a disruptive installation of system firmware, to fail with SRC B181A422 being logged.
• A problem was fixed that caused concurrent maintenance operations, if attempted immediately after a concurrent firmware installation, to be disabled.
• A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent node add to fail after a disruptive firmware installation with SRC B181A422 being logged.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a concurrent add or repair of a GX adapter from being re-attempted if a reset/reload of the primary system controller occurred during the GX add part of the initial procedure. 

11/21/08

New Features and Functions:

• Support for concurrent processor node addition, as well as hot and cold node repair. 
• Support for up to 30 feature code 5791, 5797, 5798, 5807, 5808, and 5809 I/O drawers in two powered I/O racks, with the limitation that no more than 12 of those 30 drawers can be feature codes 5791, 5797, 5798, 5807, 5808, and 5809.
• Support for migrating memory DIMMs from POWER5 model 59x systems to model FHA systems.
• Support for concurrently connecting an I/O rack to a model FHA system.
• Support for the 8GB fiber channel adapter, F/C 5735.
• Support for a virtual tape device.
• Support for USB flash memory storage devices.
• Support in the system controller firmware for IPv6.
• Support in the hypervisor for three types of hardware performance monitors.
• Support for installing AIX and Linux using the integrated virtualization manager (IVM).
• On systems running AIX, support was added for an enhanced power and thermal management capability. When static power save mode is selected, AIX will "fold" processors to free processors which can then be put in the "nap" state.

• A problem was fixed that prevented the default partition environment in the advanced system management interface (ASMI) power on/off menu from being set to "i5/OS" when it was blank.
• The firmware was enhanced so that SRC B1xx3409, which indicates an invalid state change (such as pushing the power on button twice quickly) will be logged as informational instead of predictive, and will not call home.
• A problem was fixed that caused a service processor dump to be taken and SRC B181EF88 to be logged, even though the operation of the system was not affected.
• On systems that are managed by a hardware management console (HMC), a problem was fixed that, under certain rare circumstances, caused SRC B181E411 to be logged, a call home to be made, and a service processor dump to be taken.
• The firmware was enhanced so that SRC B1812224, which indicates that the user attempted to enable redundancy when the managed system was booting, will be logged as informational instead of predictive.
• A problem was fixed that prevented error log entries on the secondary service processor (or system controller) from generating a serviceable event on the hardware management console (HMC).
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rare circumstances, caused SRC B1754202 to be erroneously logged (as a predictive error with a call home) after a disruptive firmware installation.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1818A0F to be erroneously logged during a firmware installation when service processor (or system controller) failover is disabled.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the machine type and model data from being added to a node controller's error log entries.
• On systems with external I/O frames, a problem was fixed that might have prevented the firmware from "unthrottling" processors after entering power save mode.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash and a SYSDUMP to be taken, with SRCs B170E540, B181D138, or B700F105, with a bad PCI-E adapter installed and in use, or while running a heavy network load.

• On systems with the integrated x-series adapter (IXA), a problem was fixed that prevented the creation of a system plan on the HMC.
• On systems with multiple host channel adapter (HCA) cards, a problem was fixed that logical ports on the HCA cards to be intermittently inactive.
• In networks using a time server, a problem was fixed that caused the date on a client system to be reset to 1969 if the client system lost power.