Power5 Firmware

01/03/07

System firmware changes that affect all p5 and i5 systems:
 

• DEFERRED:  A change was made to improve the reliability of system memory.  This change reduces the likelihood of SRC B123E500 occurring, and also reduces the likelihood of a system crash with SRC B1xxF667.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B150D133. A system dump is generated as a result of the problem (SRC B181F03B).
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused prevented correctable L3 errors from being recovered, with the result that an error threshold was reached, and an erroneous FRU callout was made.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused I/O paths to be deconfigured after certain types of failures, indicated by SRC B170100A, until no I/O paths were left.  The firmware has been changed so that the I/O paths are no longer deconfigured under these circumstances.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that was preventing AIX system dumps with SRC D200A200 after a partition hang.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system or partition to crash when corruption was detected in low memory.
• A problem was fixed that caused the platform dump function to fail intermittently.  The symptoms were that the dump did not terminate the system, and only partial dumps were collected. 
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B150F62A to be erroneously generated during a dump; the software portion of the dump was lost as well.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B121E500 with word 8 = 00530006 to be erroneously generated after a memory steering operation.
• A problem was fixed in partition firmware that caused a system or partition to hang at progress code CA00E891 when booting.
• A problem was fixed that caused dynamic logical partitioning (DLPAR) operations to intermittently hang partitions running Linux.
• A problem was fixed that caused a system or partition to crash when trying to view the fibre-channel boot devices in the SMS menus.
• A problem was fixed that caused AIX to incorrectly report errors that occurred during booting and were then passed to the AIX error log.
• A problem was fixed that caused the "ping" command in the system management services (SMS) to fail during a NIM installation.
• A problem was fixed that caused the additional error data words with SRC B2001150 to be incomplete.
• A problem was fixed that caused multiple B7005190 SRCs to be generated when virtual Ethernet adapters were configured.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a tower from being viewed on the HMC after a concurrent replacement of the tower's backplane.
• A problem was fixed that might have caused a race condition in the hypervisor firmware to occur, which could cause a platform-wide hang. 

• HIPER:  On model 575, 590, and 595 systems, a problem was fixed that caused a memory failure with SRC B123E500 after the concurrent repair of a CEC DCA. 
• HIPER: On systems with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused the connection state to toggle between "Incomplete", "No Connection" and "Already Connected".
• On systems that have two HMCs attached, a problem was fixed that caused a system dump collected by the HMC to be truncated.
• On systems that have two HMCs attached, a problem was fixed that caused a firmware update to fail with SRC B181300A.
• On model 590 and 595 systems, a problem was fixed that caused the platform dump to be corrupted when the hardware content of the system dump (which is set using the service processor menus) was set to "maximum".
• On model 590 and 595 systems, the FRU callouts were enhanced to improve system reliability after an uncorrectable memory error occurs (with SRC B123E500).
• A problem was corrected in which a system dump (collected by the HMC) that is greater than 4 GB is incorrectly truncated and returns invalid data. This change properly returns a 4GB system dump when truncation is required.
• On systems managed by an HMC, a problem was fixed that caused the HMC to report that an incomplete platform dump had been collected, even though the entire dump was available.
• On systems with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that prevented the IP addresses of the secondary service processor from being displayed using function 30 on the control (operator) panel.
• On systems with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused the secondary service processor to be guarded out when there was a failure in the network that connects the two service processors.
• On systems with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused SRC B1815008 to be erroneously logged by the secondary service processor after a firmware installation.
• On systems with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused SRC B1xxB013 to be erroneously logged after a firmware installation.
• On systems with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused an entry in the service processor error log that erroneously indicated that the secondary service processor had been guarded out.
• On systems with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused the secondary service processor to reset/reload after several months of run time (with SRC B1817201), due to an out-of-memory condition.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a service processor failover from being completed successfully after the primary service processor experienced a DMA transfer timeout. 
• On a system configured with the virtual partition manager (VPM), a problem was fixed that caused the F6 option in the i5/OS service activity log (SAL) to be unavailable when the system attention indicator was on.
• A problem was fixed that prevented some partitions from being reactivated after a short power outage caused them to be deactivated.
• A problem was fixed that caused the HMC to go to the incomplete state when utilization data was requested from the managed system.
• A problem was fixed that caused an IOP-less i5/OS partition with a large amount of memory and a small logical memory block (LMB) size to fail to boot.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B182E500, and a system dump to be created, when an I/O resource was removed by a DLPAR (dynamic logical partitioning) operation.

• HIPER:  On model 561, 570, 590 and model 595 systems, a problem was fixed that caused memory to be deconfigured due to an erroneous memory controller failure, with SRC B121E500 and word 8 = 00EA0035.
• DEFERRED and HIPER: The hardware initialization settings were changed to reduce the likelihood of a system crash with SRC B114E500 and word 8 = 03010008.   This affects the following systems:
• i5:  9405-520 and 9406-520 with processor feature code 8325, 8327 or 8330.
•  p5:  9115-505, 9111-285, 9131-52A and 9133-55A.
• On model 561, 570, and 575 systems, a problem was fixed that caused PCI bus errors to be logged during a hardware reset of the service processor.
• On systems with one physical processor, a problem was fixed that caused SRC A7004730 to be erroneously posted on the control (operator) panel, and logged in the service processor error log, once an hour.
• On systems with i5/OS partitions, a problem was fixed that allowed the IOP-less IPL of a partition to loop forever while waiting for the load source device to become available. 
• On systems with i5/OS partitions, a problem was fixed that caused the IPL of IOP-less partitions to fail when "Maximum Virtual Adapters" is set to 1000 or more.
• On systems with i5/OS partitions, the hardware debugger was disabled because it was erroneously modifying memory.

• DEFERRED and HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused a partition to terminate during boot with SRC B6000103.  This change only affects systems participating in an HSL Opticonnect cluster environment. 
• A problem was fixed that caused a system in an Opticonnect cluster to crash with SRC B182E500 when partitions were activated. 

06/16/06

System firmware changes that affect the model 575, 59x, other HMC-controlled servers, and clustered systems:

• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused one of the service processors to fail, and be removed from the configuration, if an interrupt was pending during initialization.
• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused one of the service processors to fail during a failover, and the hypervisor was then unable to reset the system.
• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused PCI bus errors to occur when a hardware reset of the service processor occurred at runtime, and the service processor was on a shared PCI bus.

• DEFERRED and HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused certain types of I/O adapters to fail at runtime.  This affects the following systems:
• i5:  9405-520 and 9406-520 with processor feature code 8325, 8327 or 8330.
• p5:  9115-505, 9111-285, 9131-52A and 9133-55A.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused erroneous B113E500 errors.  This affects the following systems:
• i5:  9405-520 and 9406-520 with processor feature code 8325, 8327 or 8330.
• p5:  9115-505, 9111-285, 9131-52A and 9133-55A.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that intermittently caused a service processor performing a hardware reset to disturb other devices on the same PCI bus.  This affects the following systems:
• i5:  9406-570.
• p5:  9117-570 and 9118-575.
• DEFERRED and HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B131E500 ("I/O hub error").  This affects the following systems if Remote I/O (RIO) attachment card F/C 1806, F/C 1807, or F/C 2888 is installed, and one or more I/O drawers is attached to this adapter:
•     i5:  9405-520 and 9406-520 with processor feature code 8325, 8327 or 8330.
•     p5:  9115-505, 9111-285, 9131-52A, and 9133-55A.
• A problem was fixed that caused erroneous errors during boot on certain slots.  This affects the following systems:
• i5:  9405-520 and 9406-520 with processor feature code 8325, 8327 or 8330.
• p5:  9115-505, 9111-285, 9131-52A and 9133-55A.

04/18/06

Fixes that were deferred in earlier levels but are concurrent in this level: 

In firmware levels SF235_180  and SF235_185, there were two fixes that were deferred:

1.  A fix that affected all p5, i5, and OpenPower systems:

HIPER:  An incorrect initialization setting in the shared memory interface  (SMI) may cause a system checkstop, which could result in a system or partition crash. This is also known as the "SMI parity error" issue. 

In SF235_206 and later service packs, this fix is CONCURRENT.

2.  A fix that affected all p5, i5, and OpenPower systems:

HIPER:  The initialization settings of the memory buffers were changed to fix an incorrect timeout setting in the non-cacheable unit (NCU).  The current settings may cause a system checkstop, which could result in a system and partition crash.  This is known as the "EMQ hang" problem.

In SF235_206 and later service packs, this fix is CONCURRENT.  Also in this release of the fix, the recovery time for the EMQ hang was improved to benefit HACMP configurations.

System firmware changes that affect all p5 and i5 systems:

• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused the system to interpret a machine condition as requiring special attention handling, where no such special attention existed.  This could result in a system checkstop.  This problem is also know as the "Master Attention Alone" condition.
• HIPER:   A problem was fixed that might prevent the system from completing memory bit steering on DDR1 DIMMs during runtime.  In this scenario, the system posts an SRC of B120E500, which informs the user to IPL the system to complete the memory bit steering operation.  This fix allows the system to complete the memory bit steering during runtime (with no SRC being posted), and no reboot is required.  (If memory runs out of spare bits to use for steering, the system will post SRC B123E500 as a predictive error, with word 8=xxxxxx8A.)
• DEFERRED and HIPER:  Additional hardware initialization settings were changed to prevent system hangs with B7xx406E reference code. 
• DEFERRED:  A problem was fixed that caused a dump to stop before completion after a hardware failure with error code B1xxF22A.
• DEFERRED:  A problem was fixed that caused the system to terminate with an error code of B182901D.
• A problem was fixed that caused the service processor to perform a reset/reload too frequently, which caused too many dump files to be generated.
• A problem was fixed that was causing SRC B1xxE500 (with SRC word 8 equal to DD02) when processor runtime diagnostics were called during a dump.
• A problem was fixed that caused a BA180010 error to be logged when a PCI-X DDR slot was empty.
• A problem was fixed that caused error codes 11001D60 and 11001D63 to be erroneously generated when powering down the system.
• A problem was fixed that kept an already-connected uninterruptible power supply (UPS) from being detected correctly after the service processor performed a reset/reload operation. 
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to fail to boot if the white power button was pressed within 10 seconds after reaching standby, but before C1802000 was posted on the control (operator) panel.
• A problem was fixed that caused error code B157F22A to be posted after a main store dump.
• A problem was fixed that prevented informational errors in the advanced system management (ASM) error logs from being seen by the admin user.
• The firmware was changed to insure that error log entries related to ambient temperature problems (error codes such as 11007201, 11007203, and 11007205, for example) are sent up to the operating system. 
• A problem was fixed that was preventing systems and partitions with multiple fiber channel adapters from booting.
• A problem was fixed that caused a reset/reload to fail with error code B181D13C  when a certain type of hardware attention was being handled.

• DEFERRED and HIPER:  A potential server checkstop issue exists in clusters using p5 models p575, p590, and p595, when these models are used to execute compute-intensive applications tuned with the November Power5 Fortran compiler.  Clusters executing applications that are compiled for optimal performance by utilizing the software pre-fetch function are exposed to a server checkstop (B1xxE500). Hardware initialization settings were changed to fix this problem and  the performance tools modified to take these new settings into account. 
• DEFERRED and HIPER:  An initialization problem was fixed that was causing the high-performance switch (HPS) network adapter to hit the adapter error threshold during run-time.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused model 575 nodes to fail to boot with SRC B1817201.
• HIPER:  On systems with a high performance switch (HPS) network adapter installed, a problem was fixed that caused a checkstop when memory was moved from a partition that did not own an HPS network adapter.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that was causing the power control code to time out when querying the vital product data (VPD) on large system configurations.
• HIPER:  In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused erroneous registry errors with error code B1818A09 to be generated intermittently.
• HIPER:  In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused runtime fail-over to the secondary service processor to fail.
• HIPER:  In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused 11001Dxx error codes to be erroneously logged after a failover to the secondary service processor.
• HIPER:  In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused the system to fail to boot, and one of the service processors to become deconfigured.
• HIPER:  In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused the corruption of registry values on the primary service processor.  This registry corruption was evidenced by the fact that the hypervisor reported the amount of configurable memory incorrectly.
• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused a firmware installation to fail with multiple occurrences of error code B1818A0E.
• The firmware was enhanced so that control (operator) panel function 30 displays the secondary service processor's IP address as well as the primary service processor's IP address.
• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that was causing error code B17CE433 to be erroneously generated after an administrative fail-over.
• A problem was fixed that caused error code HSCL1400 to be generated when a redundant service processor was installed with firmware release SF230 or earlier.
• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that was causing the secondary service processor to fail after too many write operations into the flash memory.
• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that was causing the system to reboot continuously while the secondary service processor was attempting to mount a file system.
• On a system in which a redundant service processor is installed, a problem was fixed that was preventing the system from booting (with error code B155B06F) when one service processor encountered a problem collecting vital product data (VPD).
• A problem was fixed that caused a system with only a primary service processor installed to report the state of the secondary as "broken" instead of "not installed"; this prevented a firmware installation on the primary service processor.
• A problem was fixed that caused the error logs to be cleared on the secondary service processor when it was rebooted.
• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that prevented a service processor fail-over from completing if a hardware error occurred before the fail-over.
• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that was causing a 11005000 or 11005001 error code to be logged during an administrative failover.
• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that was causing a partition's time-of-day (TOD) clock to jump forward a large amount of time after a failover to the secondary service processor.  If this problem is encountered after this level of firmware is installed, the partition will have to be rebooted to correct the TOD clock.
• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that was causing an invalid error code (B181E436) to be generated during a concurrent firmware update.
• In a system with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that was preventing the system from being powered on or powered off after a surveillance failover during a power transition (with error code B181E664).
• A problem was fixed that was preventing a PCI adapter from configuring in a tower after concurrent maintenance on the slot.  If this problem is encountered, the system must be rebooted for the adapter to be correctly configured after the repair.  After this fix is concurrently activated, it will prevent the problem from reoccurring.
• A problem was fixed that caused some error log entries not to be seen on the HMC.
• A problem was fixed that caused multiple B176871C error codes to be generated.
• A problem was fixed that caused an error log entry with error code B1xxE661 to be erroneously generated after an HMC-initiated system firmware installation.
• A problem was fixed that caused some error codes not to be sent to the control (operator) panel when i5/OS failed; instead, D200C2FF is left in the control panel display.  The terminating SRC can be found in the ASMI error logs.  This problem is only seen on i5 systems in default mode without an HMC attached.
• A problem was fixed that may be encountered during a reset/reload of the service processor; the symptom is a system failure with a B7000103 error code.  If this problem is encountered, the system must be rebooted to recover.  When this fix is concurrently activated, it will prevent the problem from reoccurring.
• A problem was fixed that was seen on an HSL Opticonnect cluster when there were more than 10 partitions on either system in the Opticonnect cluster; the failure occurred during a partition boot. 
•  If you are currently affected by this problem, a server IPL must be performed  to   reactivate the low-level HSL Opticonnect connection between the  servers. 
• This problem can be avoided by manually starting the partitions individually instead of using "autostart" to start the partitions. 
• Concurrently activating this fix will prevent the problem from occurring again.
• A problem was fixed that occurred during server boot on a server with a redundant service processor installed; the server hangs at progress code C700406E. 
•  If the server is currently hung at C700406E, this level of firmware can be installed disruptively from the HMC, and the problem will be resolved when the system is automatically rebooted after the installation. 
• If the server is not hung, this level of firmware can be applied concurrently.

• On model 570 systems with more than one processor drawer, a problem was fixed that was preventing enclosure VPD keywords from being changed in the second, third, and fourth processor drawers using the ASMI menus.
• The firmware was enhanced so that the progress codes that indicate discovery of the secondary service processor are displayed on the control (operator) panel.

• On a system that is not managed by an HMC, progress codes were being displayed on the potential firmware consoles; this caused the console selection message to scroll off the screen.
• A problem was fixed that caused error code 11002600 SRC to be generated during the power-down sequence, and a failure of the subsequent power-on with error code B150F22A.

01/13/06
 

System firmware changes that affect models 590 and 595, other HMC-controlled servers, and clustered systems:

• Fixed a problem that was causing error code B1xx100A to be logged when an HMC was disconnected from a managed system.  This problem is much more likely to occur on managed systems that have two or more HMCs attached, but it can also be seen on systems with only one HMC attached.
• Fixed a problem that caused commands involving LEDs to time out on large, heavily configured systems. 
• A new function was added to system firmware to allow power code downloads to towers to be enabled and disabled.  On eServer systems with a large number of towers, this allows customers to shorten the downtime after a system firmware installation by disabling the power code download to the towers, then enabling it at a convenient time. 

• Supports Double Data Rate (DDR) PCI adapters in DDR PCI slots in the following systems:  9111-520, 9131-52A, 9113-550,  9133-55A, 9111-285, 9405-520, and 9406-520.  Running a DDR PCI adapter in a DDR PCI slot in one of these models with a firmware level prior to this one may result in a potential data error.  IBM recommends that you install this level immediately if using a DDR PCI adapter.

12/06/05

System firmware changes that affect all p5 and i5 systems:

• DEFERRED   The hardware initialization settings were changed to prevent system crashes at runtime under some circumstances. 
• DEFERRED   The initialization settings of the memory buffers were changed to eliminate spurious checkstops that were causing system and partition crashes.
• Fixed a problem that causes the system attention LED to be in the incorrect state. 
•  Fixed a problem that was causing the system attention light to come on even though no serviceable events had been logged. 
• Fixed a problem that was causing the SMS menus to hang when the boot list was viewed or changed when two AIX images are on one hard file. 
• Fixed a problem that caused a 11003114 error code to be generated during power on. 
• Fixed a problem that caused a null pointer in the virtual I/O (VIO) firmware. 
• i5/OS only:  Fixed a problem that was preventing an i5/OS partition from booting from an IOA in a DDR slot. 
• i5/OS only:  Fixed a problem that was causing some adapters to fail to become operational in i5/OS in a DDR (double data rate) slot. 
• i5/OS only:  Fixed a problem that was causing incorrect error reporting for adapters that do not support extended error handling (EEH) when installed in a DDR slot. 

•  DEFERRED   Fixed a problem that prevented a VTERM session from being opened on the HMC in certain network configurations. 
• Fixed a problem that caused bulk power controller (BPC) connection errors in clustered systems by increasing the NETC SSL time-out value. 
• Fixed a problem that caused HMC-directed concurrent maintenance actions to fail with the message "CIM client detected:  hard stop or user intervention.  Try again or delay the repair.". 
• Fixed a problem that was causing platform dumps on large, richly-configured systems to result in an out-of-bounds memory access failure. 
• A change was made to shorten the time to execute DLPAR memory removal operations.

• A timing issue in the firmware was fixed that was causing firmware installations from the operating system to fail. 

• On a model 570 systems with 12 or 16 processors, the maximum number of partitions had been erroneously set to 80 in SF235_160; this firmware level sets the maximum back to 120 partitions for 12 processors and 160 for 16 processors. 
• On the model 570 with three or four processor drawers, fixed a problem that was causing the system to stop with error code A7004713 when installing SF235_160 or higher system firmware. 

10/14/05

New function:

• On i5 systems, added support for booting from a boot device attached to an IOP-less adapter.
• Added support for the installation of two copies of the AIX operating system on one hard file.  This includes support in the SMS menus for booting from either one.
• Added support for feature code 1812, the GX Dual-port 4x InfiniBand Host Channel Adapter, on model 52A systems.
• Added support for feature code 1811, the GX Dual-port 4x InfiniBand Host Channel Adapter, on model 575 systems. 
• Added support for moving the CUoD resources from one system to another system.
• Added support for the capability to set up a backup shared ethernet so that the shared ethernet function can fail-over to a standby shared ethernet if the primary fails. This function is part of the virtual IO server.
• Added support for redundant service processors with dynamic failover in models 570, 590, and 595.
• Added support for modifying the number of On/Off CoD activations during the active period.
• Added support for unattended HMC installation over a network, and to back up full HMC disk images onto a network server.
• Added support for new models:  9131-52A, 9111-285, 9133-55A, 9115-505.
• Various enhancements to the ASCII version of the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) menus were made.

• Fixed a problem that was causing the user data in a service processor error log entry generated by the bulk power controller to be truncated to 2048 bytes.
• Fixed a problem that caused unnecessary Service Agent calls because SRC B1816009 was being generated when the white power button was pressed before the power-on sequence was complete.
• On model 590 and 595 systems, fixed a problem that was causing DDR II memory cards in slots C10 and C12 to fail the memory test during a slow-mode boot.
• Fixed a problem  that prevents power on and posts a 11002613 error code when AC is lost to one power supply.  This problem exists only in SF230 levels of firmware.
• Fixed a problem that was causing a platform dump to be incomplete under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a problem that was causing a hypervisor dump to be corrupted.
• Fixed a problem that caused the location codes to be incorrect after the planar is replaced in a pSeries 7311-D20 drawer.
• The timestamp from the bulk power controller was added into the serviceable event log entry.
• Fixed a problem that prevented the "nvunalias" open firmware command from working.
• Fixed a problem that kept the physical I/O description field on the HMC GUI from being updated after a "remove FRU and add FRU" operation. 
• Fixed a problem that caused a service processor dump or a platform dump and SRC B1817201 or B7004400. 
• Changed the firmware so that a modem attached to a system port will reconfigure to enable call-in following a power failure.
• Fixed VPD-related command hangs (such as lsmcode, lsvpd, snap)
• Fixed several problems associated with firmware installations:
•  SRC B1814008 or B181F131 was generated on reboot
• A service processor dump occurred during a firmware installation
• "lsmcode -c" command displayed all zeros for the firmware level on the T side after an installation 

09/25/06

System firmware changes that affect systems using HSL Opticonnect

• A problem was fixed that caused a system in an Opticonnect cluster to crash with SRC B182E500 when partitions were activated.

• HIPER:  On model 575, 590, and 595 systems, a problem was fixed that caused a memory failure with SRC B123E500 after the concurrent repair of a CEC DCA. 
• On model 590 and 595 systems, the FRU callouts were enhanced to improve system reliability after an uncorrectable memory error was repaired.
• A problem was fixed that was causing enhanced error handling (EEH) error codes to be erroneously generated on 7040-61D I/O drawers when certain adapter card configurations were heavily stressed by the application code.

• HIPER:  On model 561, 570, 590 and model 595 systems, a problem was fixed that caused memory to be deconfigured due to an erroneous memory controller failure, with SRC B121E500 and word 8 = 00EA0035.
• On model 561 and 570 systems with more than one processor drawer, a problem was fixed that was preventing enclosure VPD keywords from being changed in the second, third, and fourth processor drawers using the ASMI menus.
• A problem was fixed that caused the service processor to run out of memory with SRC B110F139.

• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused prevented correctable L3 errors from being recovered, with the result that an error threshold was reached, and an erroneous FRU callout was made.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused the system or partition to crash when corruption was detected in low memory.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that was preventing AIX system dumps with SRC D200A200 after a partition hang.
• A problem was fixed that caused dynamic logical partitioning (DLPAR) operations to intermittently hang partitions running Linux.
• A problem was fixed that caused AIX to incorrectly report errors that occurred during booting, and were then passed to the AIX error log.
• A problem was fixed that caused the "ping" command in the system management services (SMS) to fail during a NIM installation.
• A problem was fixed that caused multiple B7005190 SRCs to be generated when virtual Ethernet adapters were configured.
• A problem was fixed that kept an already-connected uninterruptible power supply (UPS) from being detected correctly after the service processor performed a reset/reload operation. 

04/03/06

Two fixes that were deferred in earlier levels are concurrent in this level:

1.  In firmware level SF230_150, there was a deferred fix that affects all p5 and i5 systems: 

HIPER:  The initialization settings of the memory buffers were changed to eliminate spurious checkstops that were causing system and partition crashes.

In SF230_156, this fix is CONCURRENT. 

2.  In firmware level SF230_153 (which is also part of ECA 823), there was a deferred fix that affects model 59x systems:

HIPER:  The hardware initialization settings were changed to fix an incorrect timeout setting in the non-cacheable unit (NCU). The current settings may cause a system checkstop, which could result in a system or partition crash.  This is also known as the  "EMQ hang" problem. 

In SF230_156, this fix is CONCURRENT.  Also, the recovery time for the EMQ hang was improved to benefit HACMP configurations. 
 

System firmware changes that affect all p5 and i5 systems:

• HIPER: An incorrect initialization setting in the shared memory interface  (SMI) may cause a system checkstop, which could result in a system or partition crash. This is also known as the "SMI parity error" issue. 
• HIPER:  Fixed a firmware problem that caused the system to interpret a machine condition as requiring special attention handling, where no special attention existed. This could result in a system checkstop (with error codes B181F647 and B110F139).  This problem is also known as the "master attention alone" issue.

• DEFERRED and HIPER:  A potential server checkstop issue exists in clusters using p5 models p575, p590, and p595, when these models are used to execute compute-intensive applications tuned with the November Power5 Fortran compiler.  Clusters executing applications that are compiled for optimal performance by utilizing the software pre-fetch function are exposed to a server checkstop (B1xxE500). Hardware initialization settings were changed to fix this problem and  the performance tools modified to take these new settings into account.
• HIPER  On systems with a high performance switch (HPS) network adapter installed, fixed a problem that caused a checkstop when memory was moved from a partition that did not own an HPS network adapter. problem was fixed that prevented I/O towers from being concurrently added to i5 systems.
• A problem was fixed that was preventing partitions with large amounts of memory from booting successfully.
• The firmware was changed so that the time it takes to remove a large amount of memory from a partition using a DLPAR (dynamic LPAR) operation is reduced.
• A problem was fixed that was causing enhanced error handling (EEH) error codes to be erroneously generated on 7040-61D I/O drawers when certain adapter card configurations were heavily stressed by the application code.

• On p5 systems that are not managed by an HMC, the timeout for firmware installations performed by the operating system ("in-band" installations) was increased.

11/02/05

Attention: An IPL is required to activate a deferred fix, the system must be powered off via the HMC, (i.e. HMC state=Power OFF) and then powered back on. 

• DEFERRED Changed the initialization settings of the memory buffers to eliminate spurious checkstops that were causing system and partition crashes.
• DEFERRED  On model 590 and 595 systems, fixed a problem that was causing DDR II memory cards in slots C10 and C12 to fail the memory test during a slow-mode boot. 
• DEFERRED  Fixed a problem that was not allowing the system enclosure serial number to be rewritten using the ASMI menus.
• DEFERRED  Fixed a problem that causes the default boot list and the stored boot list to be swapped in the system management services (SMS) firmware when booting an AIX or Linux partition. 
• Several problems were fixed that caused a failure to boot with SRCs B1817201, C1001014 and/or C1001020.
• On an HMC, fixed a problem that caused a blank screen when reopening a VTERM after closing it.
• Fixed a problem that was causing a platform dump to be incomplete under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a problem that caused a "no connection" state between the HMC and the service processor after the service processor attempted a dump operation.
• Added support for ARP (address request protocol) to the System Management Services (SMS) firmware for AIX and Linux partitions.
• Fixed a problem in the server firmware that was allowing the HMC to allocate more memory to a partition than was available.

10/27/05
 

• Fixed a problem that caused system processors to get into a locked state.
• Changed the initialization settings of the memory buffers to eliminate spurious checkstops that were causing system and partition crashes.

08/24/05

• Fixed a problem on i5 systems with 5074 I/O towers that causes a partition to hang with SRC B6000255 when an I/O adapter in the 5074 is moved using dynamic LPAR.
• Fixed a problem on i5 and p5 systems that causes a continuous stream of phantom interrupts on partitions with shared processors.

08/09/05

Attention: An IPL is required to activate a deferred fix, the system must be powered off via the HMC, (i.e. HMC state=Power OFF) and then powered back on. 

• DEFERRED  On model 575 and 59x systems in which an IBM High Performance Switch (HPS) is installed, fixed a problem that was causing an invalid high performance switch adapter failure to be reported after a switch failure. 
• DEFERRED  On model SR110000 systems only, fixed a problem that was causing the I/O in the CEC not to show up after an IPL. 
• DEFERRED  On systems that are managed by an HMC, a problem was fixed that was causing concurrent firmware update to fail with error code ACT01724 on the HMC. 
• DEFERRED  Fixed a problem involving correctable and uncorrectable memory errors that may have resulted in memory being deconfigured during a slow mode IPL on 9119-59x systems with F/C 7814 (4 GB memory cards) installed. 
• Support for 16-way model 575 systems was added to the SF230 release. 
• Fixed a problem that was causing the firmware to erroneously report a failure of the High Performance Switch (HPS) adapter card (with error code B181F62A) in a 16-way model 575 system. 
• On model 59x systems, a memory leak was fixed that could cause the system to reset during boot.
• Fixed false error code B1812033 introduced in code level SF230_120 on all p5 and i5 systems model 570 and lower. The B1812033 error code may still be valid on 575 and 59x systems. 
• Fixed intermittent boot problem introduced in code level SF230_120 on all p5 and i5 systems model 550 and lower. Error codes related to this boot problem include B1701004, B181F12E or B150F22A. 
• On model 575 and 59x systems in which an IBM High Performance Switch (HPS) is installed, a problem in the system firmware was fixed that was causing duplicate errors for the same problem to be reported in the service processor error log and the HPS Network Manager error log. 
• On model 575 and 59x systems in which an IBM High Performance Switch (HPS) is installed, a problem in the system firmware was fixed that was causing some switch network interface (SNI) adapters to fail a wrap test. 
• On systems that are managed by an HMC, fixed a problem that was preventing some types of errors that were logged in the service processor's error log from being sent to the HMC. 
• Fixed a problem that caused a very early reset/reload of the service processor with error codes of B1817201, B1817209 or similar after a firmware update. 
• On systems that shipped with a firmware level that begins with SF210, a problem was fixed that was causing the firmware installation to the T side to fail with error code B1817201. 
• Fixed a problem that was causing platform system dumps to be corrupted. 
• Fixed a problem that was causing concurrent firmware maintenance to fail.

06/16/05

• Fixed a problem that causes the media bay to lose power, which makes the DVD drives in the bay inoperable on 9117-570 and 9406-570 systems.
• Fixed most problems introduced in SF230_120 that causes the white power on/off button to intermittently fail to boot the system, terminating with error codes B181F12E, B1701004 or B150F22A, on 9111-520, 9113-550, 9405-520, 9406-520 and 9406-550 systems.
• Fixed a problem that causes various types of planar and RIO cable failures in the 7040-61D I/O subsystem to be reported on 9118-575, 9119-590, 9119-595 and 9406-595.

06/03/05

New function: 

• Adds code to notify the user when the VPD card is not in its original system, and to prevent that system from booting. 
• Adds support for i5/OS hosting virtual Linux and AIX partitions on i5 systems that are not managed by an HMC. 
• Adds support for F/C 7910 on model 9118-575 systems the switch network interface  adapter, which provides the interface to the pSeries high performance switch (HPS). 
• Adds support for F/C 7817 on 9119-590, 9119-595, and 9406-595 systems, the switch network interface (SNI) adapter, which provides the interface to the pSeries high performance switch (HPS). 
• Adds support for concurrent firmware maintenance on systems managed by an HMC. 
• Adds support for 32GB memory cards on 9119-590, 9119-595, and 9406-595 systems. 
• Adds support for F/C 7894, 8GB (4x2GB) feature (2GB DDR2 DIMMs, CCIN 30F3) on machine type 9117-570.

• LEDs on GX bus adapter cards remain on after the node is powered off for 9119-590, 9119-595, and 9406-595 systems. 
• The service processor is not able to place a "call home" through a modem. 
• On systems 9118-575, 9119-590, 9119-595, and 9406-595: a firmware upgrade from SF222_075 to SF225_096 fails with error code ACT01724 on the HMC. 
• Fixed a problem that causes the default boot list and the stored boot list to be swapped in the system management services (SMS) code when booting an AIX or Linux partition. 
• Fixed a highly intermittent problem that causes the service processor to perform a dump when an SRC is displayed on the control panel. 
• On  9118-575, 9119-590, 9119-595, and 9406-595 systems, updates the firmware so that the system will continue to boot when certain types of failures occur on bus adapter cards. 
• Fixed a problem on  9118-575, 9119-590, 9119-595, and 9406-595 systems which caused a reboot to fail with error code B7006900 under certain conditions. 
• Fixed a problem with moving a CD-ROM device between two logical partitions using DLPAR commands on the HMC. 
• On 9117-570 and 9406-570 systems:  fixed a problem a that causes a DMA_ERR with error code 1000 0003 on the integrated Ethernet port. 
• DS8000 storage subsystem:  multiple firmware fixes. 
• Fixed a problem that causes the system clock to revert to December 31, 1969 and the system to crash with error code B7000103. 
• On 9119-590 systems, fixed a problem that keeps large configurations (12 or more I/O drawers with both planars installed) from booting. 
• Fixed a problem that prevents the 'lscfg -vp' command from reporting platform-specific data on all p5 systems.
• Fixed a problem that intermittently causes a partition or the system to hang when the lsvpd or lscfg command is run on all p5 systems.  Also, 'the lsmcode' command may return "NOT DETERMINABLE".
• If two power supplies are installed, the system may fail to power on if one power supply fails in the 9110-510, 9111-520, 9113-550, 9117-570, 9123-xxx, 9124-xxx, 9405-520, 9406-520, 9406-550, 9406-570 systems.
• Fixed a problem that prevents a virtual SCSI client from connecting to a virtual SCSI server adapter on 9118-575, 9119-590, and 9119-595 systems.

 

03/12/05

• Fixed a problem in the service processor firmware that made it look like the T-side image was being lost after a "reset to factory configuration" was done using the ASMI menus. 

02/18/05

• Added support for 9118-575, 9110-510, and 9123-710.

02/07/05

• Fixed a problem that caused FSCSI errors to show up erroneously in the AIX error log when an I/O adapter failed.
• Fixed a problem that caused the processor runtime diagnostics to call out the wrong DIMM (or other memory component) when a memory failure occurred.
• Fixed a problem that caused a platform dump to run out of storage space.
• Fixed a problem that prevented the LEDs on I/O drawers from identifying or "rolling up" to the frame enclosure LED.
• Fixed a problem that caused the service processor to generate error log entries every few seconds when attempting to service a recoverable CEC hardware error on systems that have processors with no memory associated with them.

12/17/04

• Fixed a problem with the AMSI menu option that allows system VPD keywords to be set.
• Fixed a problem that kept the system from continuing to boot when an 8GB memory DIMM is deallocated because an uncorrectable error was generated by the DIMM during boot.
• Fixed a problem that caused a partition's time to appear to drift (approximately 15 seconds/month) following a system IPL.
• Support for partitions running i5/OS on p5 systems was added.
• Fixed a problem that caused the default boot list and the stored boot list in the SMS menus to be swapped.

11/24/04

• Added support for systems 9119-590, 9119-595, and 9406-595.

11/01/04

• Fixed a problem that kept feature code 1827, a UPS sense cable, from being detected. 

09/28/04

• Fixed a problem that kept the serial ports on the processor drawer from functioning in 9117-570 and 9406-570 systems with multiple processor drawers.
• Fixed a problem that kept the user from accessing the advanced system management interface (ASMI) via the web interface.

09/13/04

• Fixed a problem that caused the kept the service processor from getting to standby when an Ethernet cable was not plugged into it.

08/03/04

• Various corrections and updates.

08/31/04

• Added support for new models:  9111-520, 9113-550, 9406-550, 9124-720, and 9117-570.