Power6 Entry Systems Firmware

Applies to: 8204-E8A, 8203-E4A, 9407-M15, 9408-M25 and 9409-M50

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

1.0 Systems Affected
2.0 Important Information
3.0 Firmware Information and Description
4.0 How to Determine Currently Installed Firmware Level
5.0 Downloading the Firmware Package
6.0 Installing the Firmware
7.0 Change History Revised (12/02/2008)

1.0 Systems Affected

This package provides firmware for System p 550 (8204-E8A), System p 520 (8203-E4A), System i 515 (9407-M15), System i 525 (9408-M25), System i 550 (9409-M50), Power 520 and Power 550 servers only. Do not use on any other systems.

The firmware level in this package is:

EL320_076

Updating your system firmware from EL320_031 or EL320_040 directly to EL320_076 (in one step) can not be performed concurrently. An interim firmware level, EL320_046, has been created that will allow an update to EL320_076 concurrently.

To reduce the amount of time required to perform this update and to activate any deferred content in EL320_076, Product Engineering recommends that the firmware update from EL320_031 or EL320_040, directly to EL320_076 is performed disruptively during a scheduled window.

If you plan to install this firmware concurrently, it will require two firmware updates:
1 - Install system firmware level EL320_046.
2 - Then, install system firmware level EL320_076.

Note: Both service packs, EL320_046 and EL320_076, contain a HIPER fix to correct a service processor communications hang which could result in a system checkstop. If you are unable to update your firmware to the latest level (EL320_076), Product Engineering recommends that you minimally install the EL320_046 level to obtain the HIPER fix.

2.0 Important Information

HMC-Managed System

Systems may continue to use HMC code Version 7, Release 3.2. If you choose to upgrade to Version 7, Release 3.3.0, you will have to install MH01119 before attempting to load this system firmware on your server.

For information concerning HMC releases and to access the HMC code packages, go to the following URL: http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/set2/sas/f/hmc/home.html

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

Support for EnergyScale^tm and Active Energy Manager^tm

For more information on the energy management features now available, please see the EnergyScale^tmwhite paper.

Signal Cable in an InfiniBand loop, and InfiniBand I/0 drawer power on/off

The problems noted in this section in earlier levels of this description file were corrected in the EL320_059 firmware level by the last two fixes in the "affects certain systems" section.

Concurrent Firmware Updates

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

Memory Considerations for Firmware Upgrades

The increase in memory used by the firmware is due to the additional functionality in later firmware releases.

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:

01ELXXX_YYY_ZZZ

XXX is the release level
YYY is the service pack level
ZZZ is the last disruptive service pack level

NOTE: Values of service pack and last disruptive service pack level (YYY and ZZZ) are only unique within a release level (XXX). For example, 01EL310_067_045 and 01EL320_067_053 are different service packs.

An installation is disruptive if:

The release levels (XXX) are different.

Example: Currently installed release is EL310, new release is EL320

The service pack level (YYY) and the last disruptive service pack level (ZZZ) are equal.

Example: EL310_120_120 is disruptive, no matter what level of EL310 is currently
installed on the system

The service pack level (YYY) currently installed on the system is lower than the last disruptive service pack level (ZZZ) of the service pack to be installed.

Example: Currently installed service pack is EL310_120_120 and
new service pack is EL310_152_130

An installation is concurrent if:

The service pack level (YYY) is higher than the service pack level currently installed on your system.

Example: Currently installed service pack is EL310_126_120,
new service pack is EL310_143_120.

Firmware Information and Update Description


*Filename*	*Size*	*Checksum*
01EL320_076_045.rpm	21814767	15412

EL320
EL320_076_045 06/06/08	Impact: Serviceability Severity: HIPER System firmware changes that affect all systems: DEFERRED and 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 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. A problem was fixed that caused the /tmp directory on the service processor to fill up, which results in an out-of-memory condition. When this problem occurred, the service processor usually performed a reset/reload. This is one possible cause of SRC B1817201 being logged. A problem was fixed that caused panel function 02 to fail when trying to set the "next IPL speed" or "next IPL side". System firmware changes that affect systems managed by an HMC HIPER: A problem was fixed in the hypervisor that might cause a partition migration to fail.
EL320_061_031 Mfg Only 05/09/08	Impact: Serviceability Severity: HIPER 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.
EL320_059_031 Mfg Only 05/06/08	Impact: Function Severity: Special Attention New features and functions: - Support for IPv6 was added. - Support for logical volumes bigger than 2 TB was added. - On system managed by an HMC, virtual switch support for virtual Ethernet devices was added. This requires HMC V7 R3.3.0.0 with efix MH01102 to be running on the HMC. Fixes that affect all systems: HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused capacity-on-demand (COD) data to be retrieved in an unreadable format from the Anchor (VPD) card. HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused enhanced error handling (EEH) to fail on certain I/O adapters. DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused the system to appear to hang with C10090B8 in the control (operator) panel during a slow mode boot. A problem was fixed that prevented the processor clock from being deconfigured with the fabric bus after a hardware error. A problem was fixed that caused the L2 deconfiguration option to be displayed on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus on systems on which it is not supported. A problem was fixed that caused the GX adapter slot reservation option to be displayed on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus on systems on which it is not supported. A problem was fixed that caused the location code reported with enhanced error handling (EEH) errors on certain imbedded slots have a "-Cx" suffix instead of the correct "-T#" suffix for the underlying adapter. This also impacted the HMC's System Planning tool. A problem was fixed that caused the Linux boot loader to lose its command line parameters (and fail to boot a Linux partition) during a reconfiguration reboot. A problem was fixed that caused the "iSCSI" and "network1" aliases to be created incorrectly in the SMS menus; this might have prevented the system or partition from booting from that device. A problem was fixed that caused this informational message to be erroneously sent to the operating system console: subq[5][0] destination address is 0!!! Check whether the subq is needed. If it is, allocate MEM. A problem was fixed that caused the AIX command lsvpd to hang if it was executed during a partition migration. A problem was fixed that caused the system or partition to hang at the "Welcome to AIX" banner, following an iSCSI boot, during the installation of AIX. A problem was fixed that caused an iSCSI login to fail under certain circumstances. When this failure occurred, the message sent to the console looked something like this: iscsiFailed to LOGIN to target, rc = 1 failed to login. could not open target 0x9034751 :system04 for r/w, aborting... tcpOPEN: iscsi open failed !BA012010 ! 634952: A problem was fixed that caused the location codes of devices attached to the integrated USB ports to have a duplicate port suffix. For example, when this problem occurred, the location code of the device was shown as: /usb-scsi@1 U789D.001.DQDGARW-P1-T2-T2-L1 instead of the correct location code, which is /usb-scsi@1 U789D.001.DQDGARW-P1-T2-L1 Two translation issues were fixed. The first one caused the string "No alias" to always be displayed on the iSCSI menus in SMS in English even though it should have been translated into the other languages that the SMS menus support.. The second one caused the NIC (network interface card) parameters such as the client IP address in the SMS ping menu to be displayed with message strings in English; these should have been translated as well. A problem was fixed that caused the SMS menus to drop into the open firmware prompt with the message "DEFAULT CATCH!" when the ping test failed. A problem was fixed that prevented the operating system from setting the boot device list in NVRAM. A problem was fixed that caused approximately 20-25 occurrences of informational SRC B7005300 to be logged during every IPL, which was filling up the error logs. A problem was fixed that caused a service processor dump to be generated with SRC B181EF88 when the advanced system management interface (ASMI) client was closed abruptly, or a network failure disconnected the client and the ASMI. Enhancements were made to the firmware to improve the reliability of memory DIMMs. A change was made to the firmware such that predictive SRCs B18138B0, B1813862, or B1813882 are now logged as informational. System firmware changes that affect certain model E4A and E8A systems: HIPER: On systems managed by an HMC, a problem was fixed that might cause the system to terminate while IPLing partitions soon after a system boot. This problem might also have been seen if the partitions were set to "autostart". This failure is typically seen on systems with a large amount of memory; SRC B181D138 is usually logged when this error occurs. On system using the EnergyScale(TM) technology, enhancements were made to include status, log, and error information about the Power Save mode in the service processor error logs. On systems using the EnergyScale(TM) technology, a problem was fixed that caused the calculations of power usage to be incorrect. On systems managed by an HMC, a problem was fixed that prevented the "100 Mbps/full duplex" setting for the HEA 1 Gbps ports from being implemented from the HMC. When this occurred, there was no error message on the HMC, but the setting never took effect. On systems managed by an HMC, a problem was fixed that caused the MAC addresses displayed on the HMC, in the HEA logical port information for the second port group, to show invalid addresses. On systems with 7134-G30 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that caused the InfiniBand I/O device to drop packets, which resulted in an unrecoverable error. On systems with 7134-G30 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that caused the drawer to fail when performing concurrent maintenance on the associated InfiniBand loop. On systems with 7134-G30 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that caused the partition to become unresponsive when an InfiniBand cable in a redundantly-cabled loop was disconnected.
EL320_046_031 06/09/08	Impact: Serviceability Severity: HIPER 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.
EL320_040_031 02/29/08	8204-E8A Impact: Serviceability Severity: Special Attention 8203-E4A Impact: New Severity: New New Features and Functions: Support for the 8203-E4A system was added. Fixes that affect all model E8A systems: DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused a system crash (with SRC B131E504) by changing the initialization settings of the I/O control hardware. A problem was fixed that, under certain circumstances, caused the InfiniBand adapter to stop responding to InfiniBand requests. A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1813014 to be logged after a successful system firmware installation. 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. System firmware changes that affect certain model E8A systems: On systems with a 1519-100 tower attached, a problem was fixed that caused the location code of a connector on the integrated virtual IOP to be displayed as Un-SE1-SE1-T1 instead of Un-SE1-T1. On systems with 7134-G30 I/O drawers attached in certain cabling configurations, a problem was fixed that prevented the I/O port labels from being displayed for the port location codes on the hardware topology screens. On systems running system firmware level EL320_031, a problem was fixed that caused attempts to call home to fail. On systems running the Active Energy Manager^tm, a problem was fixed that caused the Exhaust Heat Index (EHI) to read up to 21 degrees lower than the actual exhaust air temperature.
EL320_031_031 02/08/08	8204-E8A Impact: New Severity: New 8203-E4A not supported at this level Features and Functions: Support for the creation of multiple virtual shared processor pools (VSPPs) within the one physical pool. (In order for AIX performance tools to report the correct information on systems configured with multiple shared processor pools, a minimum of AIX 5.3 TL07 or AIX 6.1 must be running.) Support for the "hyperboot" boot speed option in the power on/off menu on the Advanced System Management interface (ASMI). Support for the capability to move a running AIX or Linux partition from one system to another compatible system with a minimum of disruption. Support for the collection of extended I/O device information (independent of the presence of an operating system) when a system is first connected to an HMC and is still in the manufacturing default state. Support for EnergyScale^tm and Active Energy Manager^tm. For more information on the energy management features now available, please see the EnergyScale^tmwhite paper . Note 1: The lowest power cap that Active Energy Manager^tm will allow the user to set is below the power value that can be guaranteed. To avoid error conditions, set the power cap above the power used by the system at maximum load. See the EnergyScale^tm white paper at the link above for more information on how to set the power cap. Note 2: The Exhaust Heat Index (EHI), as shown on Active Energy Manager^tm, may read up to 21 degrees lower than the actual exhaust air temperature.

4.0 How to Determine Currently Installed Firmware Level

You can view the server's current firmware level on the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) Welcome pane. It appears in the top right corner. Example: EL320_076.

5.0 Downloading the Firmware Package

Follow the instructions on the web page. 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: ELXXX_YYY_ZZZ

Where XXX = release level

If the release level will stay the same (Example: Level EL320_075_075 is currently installed and you are attempting to install level EL320_081_075) this is considered an update.
If the release level will change (Example: Level EL320_081_075 is currently installed and you are attempting to install level EL330_096_096) this is considered an upgrade.

HMC Managed Systems

Instructions for installing firmware updates and upgrades on systems managed by an HMC can be found at http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/systems/scope/hw/topic/ipha1/updateschapter.htm

Systems not Managed by an HMC

p Systems

Instructions for installing firmware on systems that are not managed by an HMC can be found at http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/systems/scope/hw/topic/ipha5/fix_serv_firm_kick.htm

i Systems

See "Server Firmware: Update Policy Set to Operating System", http://www-912.ibm.com/s_dir/slkbase.nsf/ibmscdirect/31B3272F48FDEAF38625746C0062665C

7.0 Change History

DATE	Description
Dec 02, 2008	Revised the link in Section 6.0 for updating and upgrading firmware.
Sep 29, 2008	- Updated HMC information from MH01105 to MH01119 in Section 2.0. - Revised pointer to instructions for installing firmware on systems not managed by an HMC. - Revised information in fixlist to emphasize that EL320_031 is not supported on 8203-E4A systems.
Jul 17, 2008	Moved information for installing firmware on systems not managed by an HMC to Section 6.0.
Jul 02, 2008	Change to Section 2.0: - Added a pointer to instructions for installing firmware on systems not managed by an HMC.
Jun 24, 2008	Changes to Section 2.0: - Revised information pertaining to HMC Managed Systems. - Added information concerning Concurrent firmware Updates. - Added information concerning updates for i systems not managed by an HMC.