Power6 High-End System Firmware

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 32 I/O drawers in two powered I/O racks.
• 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.

• 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.

08/28/08

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• DEFERRED and HIPER:  A problem was fixed that, under certain rarely occurring circumstances, an application could cause a processor to go into an error state, and the system to crash.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused the system to terminate abnormally with SRC B131E504.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that might cause a partition to crash during a partition migration before the migration was complete.
• DEFERRED:  Enhancements were made to the system firmware to reduce the system boot time on power up.
• DEFERRED:  A problem was fixed such that under certain rare circumstances, if a system controller failover occurred, the new secondary system controller was not able to communicate with the system.
• DEFERRED:  A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1608CB0 to be logged if a separate I/O frame is attached to the CEC frame.
• A problem was fixed that caused multiple instances of SRC B1818A03 and B1818A0A to be logged erroneously, and multiple calls home to be made, during a frame connection reset.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1819506 to be erroneously generated, and a call home to be made, when service processor (or system controller) error log entries were generated faster than they could be processed.
• A problem was fixed that caused the hardware management console (HMC) to show an "Incomplete" state after it attempted to read a file with an incorrect size from the service processor (or system controller).  This problem also occurred if the "factory configuration" option was used on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus.
• Enhancements were made to the firmware to improve the FRU callouts for certain types of failures of the time-of-day clock circuitry.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a dump file larger than 4 GB from being successfully off-loaded to the hardware management console (HMC).
• On systems with redundant bulk power controllers, a problem was fixed that caused the hardware management console (HMC) to get stuck at "Pending Authentication" for one of the bulk power controllers (BPCs).
• On systems with I/O drawers attached, a problem was fixed that might have caused some I/O slots in the drawers not to be configured when the system was booted.
• In systems with clustered processors, various problems were fixed in the InfiniBand interconnection networks.
• A problem was fixed that caused the location codes of the external InfiniBand ports on a 5791 I/O drawer with the InfiniBand interface to be reported incorrectly on the HMC.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B7006971 to be generated because the firmware was  incorrectly performing operations on PCI-Express I/O adapters during dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operations on memory.
• A problem was fixed the might have caused an out-of-memory condition in the hypervisor, with SRC B7000200 being logged.
• A problem was fixed in the thermal management firmware that caused SRCs B1812635 and B1812636 to be logged, and the system or node to run in low power mode when it should have been in nominal, or nominal when it should have been in low power mode.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1818A10 to be erroneously generated after a successful installation of system firmware.
• A problem was fixed that caused the AIX commands "lsmcode" and "diag" to fail after a partition migration.
• A problem was fixed that caused the message "BA330000malloc error!" to be displayed on the operating system console after a partition migration, even though SRC BA330000 had not been logged.  When this problem occurred, the partition migration appeared to be successful.  However, a process within the partition was either hung or had failed, and in most cased the partition had to be rebooted to fully recover.
• A problem was fixed that caused the status of the connection between the hardware management console (HMC) and the service processor to be set to an invalid state.  This might cause problems when the HMC and service processor tried to communicate.
• A problem was fixed that caused partitions that were being rebooted to hang at D200E0AF after a concurrent firmware update under certain circumstances.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the replacement of a system controller from completing successfully if the system controller had been guarded out prior to it replacement.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system controller to go through an unnecessary reset/reload cycle when a checkstop occurred or the system was powered off.
• Enhancements were made to the firmware to improve the FRU callouts for certain types of failures of the node controller.
• A problem was fixed that caused predictive SRC B181EF88 to be logged when, under certain circumstances, a system controller failover occurred at runtime.
• A problem was fixed such that if redundancy was disabled, and the emergency power off (EPO) switch was then used to power off the system, redundancy was erroneously enabled when the system came back up.
• Enhancements were made to the firmware to improve the FRU callouts for certain types of failures of a node controller.
• A problem was fixed such that caused the service processor (or system controller) to lose its communication link with the hypervisor, and SRC A181D000 to be logged, under certain rare circumstances.
• On systems using virtual shared processor pools (VSPP), a problem was fixed that caused the number of processors assigned to the partitions to be reduced after a memory-preserving IPL. 

06/10/08

This level is a disruptive update from the prior level, EH330_018.  The system should be powered off before installing this level of system firmware.  If this level is installed when the system is running, the CECs will be rebooted, causing all partitions to be terminated, and a reboot will be required. 

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent firmware installation to hang with SRC BA00E840 being logged.  This problem may also cause a partition migration to hang, under certain circumstances, with the same SRC, BA00E840, being logged.  This SRC will be logged when this level of firmware is installed and will generate a call home; it should be ignored.  It will not be logged during subsequent installations.
• HIPER: The processor initialization settings were changed to reduce the likelihood of a processor going into an error state and causing a checkstop or system crash.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that, under certain circumstances, caused a system termination during a service processor failover.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused large numbers of enhanced error handling (EEH) errors to be logged against the 4-port gigabit Ethernet adapter, F/C 5740, under certain circumstances.
• HIPER:  On systems with a redundant system controllers installed and enabled, a problem was fixed that might cause a communications hang between the two system controllers.  When this occurred, it triggered a reset/reload of the primary system controller, and the resulting fail-over to the secondary system controller failed in such a way that the system crashed. 
• Several problems were fixed that might cause one or both of the clock cards to be deconfigured, and erroneously called out as bad, when the system boots up from the power-off state. 
• A problem was fixed that caused the /tmp directory on the system controllers and the service processor in the bulk power controller (BPC) to fill up, which results in an out-of-memory condition.  When this problem occurred, the system controllers or service processor in the BPC usually performed a reset/reload.  This is one possible cause of SRC B1817201 being logged. 
• A problem was fixed that prevented the "i5/OS enable/disable" setting (in the ASMI power on/off menu) from taking effect when the system is booted.  This solution requires the system to be booted up to hypervisor standby twice after the setting is changed to "enabled". This will be fixed in a future service pack to remove the requirement for the second boot to hypervisor standby. 
• A problem was fixed that caused the firmware  to receive a false error indication when reading the registers on the LED controller.  SRC B1811340 was logged when this happened.
• A problem was fixed that prevented an error fail-over to the secondary system controller from completing successfully.
• A problem was fixed that might have caused a system firmware installation to fail with SRC B18138B7 being logged.
• A problem was fixed that caused an error log to be generated that called out system controller A (Un-P1-C2), instead of the correct callout, which was system controller B (Un-P2-C5).
• A problem was fixed that caused the P1 LED on the front light strip to be on when it should have been off.
• A problem was fixed that caused the wrong memory DIMM location to be called out when certain types of failures occurred.
• A problem was fixed that might have caused cache chip failures when the system is operating in Power Save mode.  Error log entries that might indicate that this problem is occurring include correctable errors and uncorrectable errors in L2, i-cache and d-cache memory, parity errors, and SRC B181E504. 
• The firmware was enhanced so that the IDs "celogin1" and "celogin2" allow an authorized service provider to log into the bulk power controller (BPC).
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition using a host channel adapter (HCA) or host Ethernet adapter (HEA) to appear to hang (with progress code D200C1FF being displayed) before successfully shutting down.  The amount of time the partition appeared to hang depended on the amount of memory assigned to the partition and the usage of HCA or HEA.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the HMC from connecting to the managed system if the HMC's DHCP server IP range is changed when the managed system is running.
• The error logging and FRU callout firmware was enhanced so that if a failure occurs on one or both clock cards, only one will get deconfigured, and the system will continue to try to boot instead of terminating.
• The firmware was enhanced to improve the system memory error recovery.
• The firmware was enhanced so that the contents of  the /tmp directory are included when a service processor dump is taken.
• A problem was fixed in the hypervisor that might cause a partition migration to fail.
• The firmware was enhanced so that:
• A failure when writing VPD to a P6 processor will cause the node to be deconfigured rather than terminating the system.
• The failure of a VPD write operation will  not corrupt the VPD table, which may lead to unnecessary system down-time and unnecessary FRU replacement.

• On systems using QLogic InfiniBand switches, a problem was fixed that caused the PortInfo:linkWidthActive and PortInfo:linkSpeedActive to be inaccurately stored and displayed on the display of subnet parameters.

05/13/08

• GA Level