Power7 Mid-Range Systems Firmware

Applies to: 9117-MMB and 9179-MHB

This document provides information about the installation of Licensed Machine or Licensed Internal Code, which is sometimes referred to generically as microcode or firmware.

Contents

1.0 Systems Affected

This package provides firmware for Power 770 (9117-MMB)  and Power 780 (9179-MHB)  servers only.

The firmware level in this package is:

1.1 Minimum HMC Code Level

This section is intended to describe the "Minimum HMC Code Level" required by the System Firmware to complete the firmware installation process. When installing the System Firmware, the HMC level must be equal to or higher than the "Minimum HMC Code Level" before starting the system firmware update.  If the HMC managing the server targeted for the System Firmware update is lower than the "Minimum HMC Code Level" the firmware update will not proceed.

The Minimum HMC Code level for this firmware is:  HMC V7 R7.2.0 (PTF MH01233 or MH01234) and PTF MH01246 (Service Pack 1) or higher.

For information concerning HMC releases and the latest PTFs,  go to the following URL to access Fix Central.
http://www-933.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/

For specific fix level information on key components of IBM Power Systems running the AIX, IBM i and Linux operating systems, we suggest using the Fix Level Recommendation Tool (FLRT):
http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/set2/flrt/home

NOTE: You must be logged in as hscroot in order for the firmware installation to complete correctly.

2.0 Important Information

IPv6 Support and Limitations

IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) is supported in the System Management Services (SMS) in this level of system firmware. There are several limitations that should be considered.

When configuring a network interface card (NIC) for remote IPL, only the most recently configured protocol (IPv4 or IPv6) is retained. For example, if the network interface card was previously configured with IPv4 information and is now being configured with IPv6 information, the IPv4 configuration information is discarded.

A single network interface card may only be chosen once for the boot device list. In other words, the interface cannot be configured for the IPv6 protocol and for the IPv4 protocol at the same time.

Concurrent Firmware Updates

Concurrent system firmware update is only supported on HMC Managed Systems only.

Memory Considerations for Firmware Upgrades

Firmware Release Level upgrades and Service Pack updates may consume additional system memory.
Server firmware requires memory to support the logical partitions on the server. The amount of memory required by the server firmware varies according to several factors.
Factors influencing server firmware memory requirements include the following:
Generally, you can estimate the amount of memory required by server firmware to be approximately 8% of the system installed memory. The actual amount required will generally be less than 8%. However, there are some server models that require an absolute minimum amount of memory for server firmware, regardless of the previously mentioned considerations.

Additional information can be found at:
  http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/powersys/v3r1m5/index.jsp?topic=/iphat_p5/iphatlparmemory.htm

3.0 Firmware Information and Description

Use the following examples as a reference to determine whether your installation will be concurrent or disruptive.

For systems that are not managed by an HMC, the installation of system firmware is always disruptive.

Note: The concurrent levels of system firmware may, on occasion, contain fixes that are known as deferred. These deferred fixes can be installed concurrently, but will not be activated until the next IPL. Deferred fixes, if any, will be identified in the "Firmware Update Descriptions" table of this document. For deferred fixes within a service pack, only the fixes in the service pack which cannot be concurrently activated are deferred.

Note: The file names and service pack levels used in the following examples are for clarification only, and are not necessarily levels that have been, or will be released.

System firmware file naming convention:

01AMXXX_YYY_ZZZ

NOTE: Values of service pack and last disruptive service pack level (YYY and ZZZ) are only unique within a release level (XXX). For example, 01AM720_067_045 and 01AM740_067_053 are different service packs.

An installation is disruptive if:

Example: Currently installed release is AL710, new release is AM720 Example: AM720_120_120 is disruptive, no matter what level of AM720 is currently
installed on the system Example: Currently installed service pack is AM720_120_120 and new service pack is AM720_152_130

An installation is concurrent if:

The release level (XXX) is the same, and
The service pack level (YYY) currently installed on the system is the same or higher than the last disruptive service pack level (ZZZ) of the service pack to be installed.

Example: Currently installed service pack is AM720_126_120,  new service pack is AM720_143_120.

Firmware Information and Update Description

 
Filename Size Checksum
01AM720_090_064.rpm 35091883
 24312

Note: The Checksum can be found by running the AIX sum command against the rpm file (only the first 5 digits are listed).
ie: sum 01AM720_090_064.rpm

AM720
For Impact, Severity and other Firmware definitions, Please refer to the below 'Glossary of firmware terms' url:
http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/set2/sas/f/power5cm/home.html#termdefs
AM720_090_064

03/07/11		 Impact: Data           Severity:  HIPER - High Impact/PERvasive, Should be installed as soon as possible.

System firmware changes that affect certain systems 
  • HIPER: IBM testing has uncovered a potential undetected data corruption issue when a mobility operation is performed on an AMS (Active Memory Sharing) partition.  The data corruption can occur in rare instances due to a problem in IBM firmware.  This issue was discovered during internal IBM testing, and has not been reported on any customer system.
  • On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer attached, a problem was fixed that caused a partition to crash during a page migration operation.
  • On systems with a F/C 5723 communications adapter, a problem was fixed that prevented the adapter from being seen by partition firmware (PFW) if the adapter was not in the first 144 slots that are probed by PFW.
AM720_084_064

01/04/11		 Impact:  Function       Severity:  HIPER - High Impact/PERvasive, Should be installed as soon as possible.

New Features and Functions

  • Support for partition suspend/resume.  AIX 61 TL6 SP3 or later, or AIX 71 TL0 SP2 or later, is required for partition suspend/resume.
  • CEC Hot Node Add & Repair Maintenance (CHARM) support on Power 770 and Power 780 systems.
NOTE: Support for CHARM operations on Power 770 and Power 780 systems was introduced in 7.2.0 (AM720_064).  However, IBM recommends installing this firmware level (service pack 7.2.1, AM720_084) before starting a CHARM operation on a Power 770 or Power 780 system.

System firmware changes that affect all systems

  • HIPER:  On systems using the HEA (host Ethernet adapter) function, and on which a CEC concurrent maintenance operation that requires a node evacuation is being done, this fix corrects an issue that has the potential to corrupt information stored in the system memory, which may cause undetected data errors.  This issue was discovered during internal IBM testing, and while it has not been reported on any customer systems, IBM strongly recommends that this fix be applied to all model MMB systems that are running AIX partitions.
  • HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused repeated reset/reloads of the service processor, and fail-overs, to occur after a hypervisor-initiated reset/reload of the service processor was completed.  That led to loss of communication between the service processor and the hypervisor (indicated by SRC B182951C).
  • A problem was fixed that caused disks that were not bootable to be displayed in the system management services boot menus.  This problem also prevented the operating system level from being displayed for bootable hard disks in the system management services boot menus.
  • A problem was fixed that caused an error log indicating a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) error when no DLPAR operations were done, and unrecoverable SRCs BA180010 and BA250010 to be erroneously logged, when a recoverable enhanced error handling (EEH) error was logged on an I/O adapter.
  • The firmware was enhanced to use the fan speed signal, as well as the fan present signal, to determine if fans are present in a drawer.  This change keeps the firmware from shutting down a drawer, and logging 110076x1 SRCs, if the fans are functional but the fan presence signals are corrupted.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a service processor reset/reload, a service processor dump to be taken, and B181EF88 to be logged.
  • A problem was fixed that caused the managed system to go to the incomplete state on the HMC.
  • A problem was fixed that caused the system to hang at C700406E during boot.
  • A problem was fixed that caused the platform to become unresponsive; this was indicated by an "incomplete" state on the HMC.  When this problem occurred, the partitions on the managed system became unresponsive.
  • A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1561111 to be erroneously logged, and the control (operator) panel to erroneously deactivated, if there is no activity on the control panel for several weeks.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
  • On systems with a solid state disk drive (SSD), the fan speeds were increased to provide additional cooling to the SSD drives.
  • 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.
  • A problem was fixed that caused the system ID to change, which caused software licensing problems, when a live partition mobility operation was done where the target system was an 8203-E4A or an 8204-E8A.
  • PARTITION-DEFERRED:  A problem was fixed that caused SRC BA210000 to be erroneously logged on the target system when a partition was moved (using Live Partition Mobility) from a Power7 system to a Power6 system.
  • A problem was fixed that caused SRC BA280000 to be erroneously logged on the target system when a partition was moved (using Live Partition Mobility) from a Power7 system to a Power6 system.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a partition to hang following a partition migration operation (using Live Partition Mobility) from a system running Ax720 system firmware to a system running Ex340, or older, system firmware.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a system or partition running Linux to crash when the "serv_config -l".
  • On systems using the HEA broadcast/multicast application to send and receive millions of packets, such as video streaming, the packet storm mitigation algorithm was enhanced so that a packet will only be dropped when a packet storm is detected.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a partition to fail to reboot 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.
  • On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer attached, and a PCI-E adapter in the CEC, a problem was fixed that caused the system to crash during a page migration operation with SRC B700F103.
Concurrent maintenance (CM) firmware fixes
  • A problem was fixed that caused the system to hang with SRC B170E540 during a node repair operation.
AM720_064_064

09/17/10		 Impact:  Availability        Severity:  HIPER - High Impact/PERvasive, Should be installed as soon as possible.

New Features and Functions

  • Support for autonomic IPL, which allows the service processor to decide which diagnostic tests to run at boot time.
  • Support for the network installation of the IBM i operating system from the hardware management console (HMC) command line interface (CLI).
  • Support for the 7216-1U2 media drawer.
  • Support for VIOS storage integration.
  • Support for CEC Hot Node Add & Repair Maintenance (CHARM) operations on Power 770 and Power 780 systems.  However, IBM recommends installing firmware service pack 7.2.1 (AM720_084) before starting a CHARM operation on a Power 770 or Power 780 system.

System firmware changes that affect all systems

  • HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused the HMC to show the server's status as incomplete, and SRC B7000602 to be logged against SFLPHMCCMDTASK in serviceable events.  This problem can also cause the system to crash when it occurs.
  • HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused an AIX or Linux partition to fail to boot with SRC B2008151, which prevented further access to that partition, and potentially preventing prior LPAR configuration changes from being completed.  A reboot of the server is required to recover from this problem.
  • HIPER: A problem was fixed that could have prevented a successful emergency fail-over to the backup service processor if multiple reset/reload commands were issued to both service processors at roughly the same time.  If the emergency fail-over was not successful, the system might have been terminated by either the service processor or the hypervisor.  This problem did not affect an administrative fail-over of the service processor.
  • HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused informational SRC B70069DA from a host Ethernet adapter (HEA) to be logged erroneously.  These messages are sent from the hypervisor to the service processor and cause unnecessary loading of the hypervisor-service processor communication link.
  • HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused a partition, or the hypervisor, to appear to hang, then recover; the time of the apparent hang varied.  SRC B182953C might also be logged.
  • A problem was fixed that prevented an SRC from being recorded in a service processor dump produced by a host-initiated reset.
  • The wording on the memory deconfiguration menu on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) was enhanced to better differentiate between guarded resources and deconfigured resources.
  • The firmware was enhanced to improve the hardware called out with SRC B121B8AB.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
  • On systems running host Ethernet adapter (HEA), a problem was fixed that caused unrecoverable SRCs BA154050 and BA154070 to be erroneously logged.
  • On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer attached, the firmware was enhanced to allow the drawer to power on with only one working offline converter assembly (OCA).
  • On 9179-MHB systems running the enhanced cache option (ECO), a problem was fixed that periodically caused the system fans to run at full speed.

4.0 How to Determine Currently Installed Firmware Level

For HMC managed systems:  From the HMC, select Updates in the navigation (left-hand) pane, then view the current levels of the desired server(s).

Alternately, use the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) Welcome pane. The current server firmware  appears in the top right corner. Example: AM710_yyy.

5.0 Downloading the Firmware Package

 You must read and agree to the license agreement to obtain the firmware packages.

Note: If your HMC is not internet-connected you will need to download the new firmware level to a CD-ROM or ftp server.

6.0 Installing the Firmware

The method used to install new firmware will depend on the release level of firmware which is currently installed on your server. The release level can be determined by the prefix of the new firmware's filename.

Example: AMXXX_YYY_ZZZ

Where XXX = release level

Instructions for installing firmware updates and upgrades can be found at http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/powersys/v3r1m5/index.jsp?topic=/p7ha1/updupdates.htm

IBM i Systems

See "Server Firmware and HMC Wizard",
http://www-912.ibm.com/s_dir/slkbase.nsf/recommendedfixes

7.0 Firmware History

The Firmware History can be reviewed at the following url:

http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/server/firmware/AM-Firmware-Hist.html