Power6 Entry Systems Firmware

Applies to: 8204-E8A, 8203-E4A,  8261-E4S,  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.

Contents

1.0 Systems Affected

This package provides firmware for System p 550 (8204-E8A), System p 520 (8203-E4A), 8261-E4S, System i 550 (8204-E8A), System i 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.

The firmware level in this package is:

This level of firmware is required on systems not managed by an HMC.

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 R3.5.0 with PTFs MH01212 and MH01217 (or higher).

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

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

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

2.0 Cautions and Important Information

2.1 Cautions

This level of firmware is required on systems not managed by an HMC

For model 8203-E4A, 8261-E4S, 9407-M15, 9408-M25 systems, and 8204-E8A, 9409-M50 systems, that are not managed by an HMC, this is the required level of EL350 firmware.  This level contains a fix for the system ports (integrated serial ports) that are not functional in EL350_038.  ASCII terminals, modems, and the call home function are functional in this level.

Upgrading from EL320_031 to EL350_xxx

For 8204-E8A systems only: If your current level of firmware is EL320_031 you must install any higher level of EL320 before upgrading your firmware to this level.

Service Processor flash memory errors (8204-E8A and 9409-M50 systems running EL320_093 and earlier, or EL340_101 and earlier only)

IBM strongly recommends updating to System Firmware level EL350_039 or later as this firmware provides improved reliability to the 8204-E8A and 9409-M50 servers. One enhancement prevents accumulation of single bit errors in the memory used to store System Firmware by periodically correcting single bit errors automatically. If a significant number of such errors were to accumulate, the server may not boot successfully after main power is lost or removed. We strongly recommend customers update both the Temporary and Permanent copies of System Firmware when performing this upgrade. Updating both the Temporary and Permanent copies allows both memory areas to be corrected. It is critical the System Firmware update uses one of the two methods listed below. Updating System Firmware from the operating system may not correct all existing single bit errors.

Note: Do not remove main power from the server before updating the System Firmware.

For servers that are not managed by an HMC

Update the System Firmware using a USB flash drive. This method will update both the Temporary and Permanent copies of the System Firmware. For instructions on this method of install, please use the following link:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/systems/scope/hw/index.jsp?topic=/ipha5/fix_firm_usb.htm

For servers that are HMC-managed Note:  A normal accept operation to copy the Temporary side contents to the Permanent side cannot be used in place of these instructions.  The update must be done using the following method (or its command line equivalent).

IMPORTANT: Note that even if the update you are installing is categorized as being concurrent, use of the Advanced Features option will power off the system during this procedure.

If you are installing an update to a level within the same release (ex. 340_xxx to 340_yyy)

1) Power off the managed system.
2) Using the HMC GUI interface, click on "Updates" in the navigation (left-hand) pane. Click in the
checkbox beside the Managed System.
a) Click on "Change Licensed Internal Code for the current release".
b) Select "Start Change Licensed Internal Code wizard" and click "OK"
c) After clicking "OK" on the readiness check panel, select the repository where the firmware files
can be found and click "OK".
d) Click on "Next" to step through the wizard panels. Accept the license agreement when it is
displayed, and then click "Finish" to start the update.
f) When the update completes, click on "Change Licensed Internal Code for the current release"
g) Select "Advanced Features" and click "OK".
h) Select "Install and Activate" and click "OK".
i) After clicking "OK" on the readiness check panel, select the repository where the firmware files
can be found and click "OK".
j) Select "Specific Levels" and click "OK".
k) Select the managed system, then select "Change Levels".
l) Select the same level chosen in step c and click  "OK" and then click "OK" again on the next panel.
m) On the "Select Installation Type" panel, ensure that the "Disruptive install and activate" radio button is selected and click "OK".
n) Accept the license agreement when it is displayed, and then click "OK " in the confirmation panels to start the update.
o) When the process completes, the Managed System may be powered on.


If you are installing an upgrade to a new release (ex 320_xxx to 340 or 350_xxx)

1) Power off the Managed System
2) Using the HMC GUI interface, click on "Updates" in the navigation (left-hand) pane. Click in the
checkbox beside the Managed System.
a) Click on "Change Licensed Internal Code to a new release".
b) After clicking "OK" on the readiness check panel, select the repository where the firmware files
can be found and click "OK". Select the new firmware level from
the selection panel displayed and click "OK".
c) Accept the license agreement and click on "OK" in the confirmation panels to start the upgrade. 
f) When the upgrade completes, both the Activate and Accepted levels will reflect the level just installed. To effect a complete overwrite of both sides of the Service Processor, you must continue with this procedure.
g) Click on " Change Licensed Internal Code for the current release".
h) Select "Advanced Features" and click "OK".
i) Select "Install and Activate" and click "OK".
j) After clicking "OK" on the readiness check panel, select the repository where the firmware files
can be found and click "OK".
k) Select "Specific Levels" and click "OK".
l) Select the managed system, then select "Change Levels".
m) Select the same level chosen in step b and click  "OK" and then click "OK" again.
n) On the "Select Installation Type" panel, ensure that the "Disruptive install and activate" radio button is selected and click "OK".
o) Accept the license agreement when it is displayed, and then click "OK " twice to confirm the action.
p) When the process completes, the Managed System may be powered on.

2.2 Important Information

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

NOTE: Values of service pack and last disruptive service pack level (YYY and ZZZ) are only unique within a release level (XXX). For example, 01EL320_067_045 and 01EL340_067_053 are different service packs.

An installation is disruptive if:

Example: Currently installed release is EL320, new release is EL340 Example: EL320_120_120 is disruptive, no matter what level of EL320 is currently
installed on the system Example: Currently installed service pack is EL320_120_120 and
new service pack is EL320_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 EL320_126_120,
new service pack is EL320_143_120.

Firmware Information and Update Description

For information about previous firmware release levels, see Section 7.0 Firmware History.

 
Filename Size Checksum
01EL350_071_038.rpm 24500988 27151

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 01EL350_071_038.rpm

EL350
EL350_071_038

06/30/10

 Impact: Usability           Severity:   ATT

System firmware changes that affect all systems
  • A problem was fixed that caused the reactivation of wake on LAN to be delayed after an ac power loss.  Before this change, the server had to be powered up, then powered down, for wake on LAN to be reactivated.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a call home to be erroneously made with SRC B181E911, and a service processor dump to be taken unnecessarily.
  • On systems managed by an HMC, a problem was fixed that caused the HMC to show a status of "Incomplete" for the managed system, and numerous service processor dumps to be generated.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
  • On systems running the IBM i operating system, a problem was fixed that caused a DLPAR move operation with an IOP (I/O processor) and IOA (I/O adapter) to fail intermittently.  The DLPAR operation was successful, but the IOA failed to power on in the new partition.
EL350_063_038

05/10/10

 Impact: Availability           Severity:   HIPER

System firmware changes that affect all systems
  • DEFERRED, HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused SRC B113E504 with word 8 of the SRC = 074B001F or, 0197001F on 8204-E8A systems with processor F/C 4967, and 8203-E4A systems with processor F/C 5577 and 5587.
  • The firmware was enhanced to dynamically update the IPL speed on the control (operator) panel when the IPL speed is changed by another method.
  • On systems running EL350_xxx firmware, a problem was fixed the prevented the reset/reload bit from being set correctly in a service processor error log entry.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
  • On systems with F/C 5802 or F/C 5877 I/O drawers attached, the firmware was enhanced to prevent SRCs 10001510, 10001512, 10001520, and 10001521 from being erroneously logged when A/C power was removed and reapplied when the drawer is powered off.
  • A problem was fixed which caused software licensing issues after a live partition mobility operation in which a partition was moved to an 8203-E4A or 8204-E8A system.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a system or partition running Linux to crash when the "serv_config -l" command was run.
EL350_049_038

03/15/10

 Impact: Serviceability          Severity:   HIPER
System firmware changes that affect all systems
  • HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRCs B700F103 and B181F0E7, if the server was running AIX and had a  F/C 5802 or 5877 drawer (in a 19" rack), or F/C 5803 or 5873 drawer (in a 24" rack), attached.
  • DEFERRED: This fix corrects the handling of a specific processor instruction sequence that has the potential to result in undetected data errors.  This specific instruction sequence has only been observed in a small number of highly tuned Floating Point intensive applications.  However, it is strongly recommended that this fix be applied to all POWER6 systems.  This fix has the potential to decrease system performance on applications that make extensive use of floating point divide, square root, or estimate instructions.
  • A problem was fixed that prevented an SRC from being recorded in the service processor dump produced by a host-initiated reset.
  • A problem was fixed that caused SRC 10009135, followed by 10009139, to be erroneously logged.  These SRCs indicate a system power control network (SPCN) loop is being broken, then re-established.
  • The firmware was enhanced by improving the hardware callouts for SRC B1xxB942.
  • A problem was fixed that, under certain rare circumstances, caused a partition to hang when being shut down.
  • A problem was fixed that caused the system to hang with SRCs B182953C, B182954C and B17BE434 being logged.
  • The firmware was enhanced to detect and handle 12X InfiniBand I/O drawer cabling errors better.
  • A problem was fixed that, under certain rare circumstances, caused the system to become unresponsive and appear to hang  when page migration occurred on a PCIe slot.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
  • 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.
  • On systems running IBM i, a problem was fixed that caused booting the operating system from a fibre channel device to fail with SRC 576B8301.
  • On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 drawer attached, a problem was fixed that could impact the performance of a 4-port Ethernet adapter F/C 5272, 5275, 5279, 5280, 5525, 5526, or 5527 installed in that drawer.
  • On systems managed by IVM (the integrated virtualization manager) that have an InfiniBand I/O drawer attached, a problem was fixed that caused a configuration error to be erroneously reported on the InfiniBand adapter.
  • In partitions running AIX or Linux, a problem was fixed that caused the addition of an I/O slot to a partition using a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) add operation to fail.
  • On systems with shared processors, a problem was fixed that caused the partitions to hang and become unresponsive for very short periods of time.
  • A problem was fixed that prevented the IPv6 DHCP address from being displayed on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) network configuration screens when IPv6 and DHCP were enabled.  This only occurred on systems with virtual LAN (VLAN) addresses (such as eth0.30, eth0.31), and when IPv6 addresses were assigned to the eth0.xx interface.
  • On systems running redundant VIOS partitions, a problem was fixed that prevented Ethernet traffic from being properly bridged between the two partitions.  This problem also prevented shared Ethernet adapter failover from working correctly.
EL350_039_038

11/23/09

 Impact: Usability          Severity:   HIPER
  • HIPER for systems not managed by an HMC:  On 8203-E4A, 8261-E4S, 9407-M15, 9408-M25 systems, and 8204-E8A, 9409-M50 systems that are not managed by an HMC, a problem was fixed that prevented the system ports (integrated serial ports) from functioning.
EL350_038_038 10/30/09 Impact: Function           Severity:   Special Attention

New Features and Functions:

  • Support for new model 8261-E4S.
  • Support for F/C 5877, the diskless version of 19" I/O drawer F/C 5802.
  • Support for a USB-attached half-high 5.25" backup device using a removable hard disk drive (HDD).
  • Support for a platform dump that is not disruptive.
  • Support for i5/OS multipath storage I/O through VIOS partitions.
System firmware changes that affect all systems
  • A problem was fixed that might cause a concurrent firmware maintenance (CFM) operation to fail repeatedly when a large number of I/O loop errors were being logged during the CFM operation. 
  • The firmware was enhanced to handle system dumps (SYSDUMPs) larger than 4GB in size.
  • On systems running system firmware release EL340, a problem was fixed that caused a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operation on memory to fail until the platform was rebooted.
  • The firmware was enhanced to improve the performance of the F/C 5732, 5735, and 5769  PCI-E adapters.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a repair and verify (R&V) operation on the HMC to fail with the message "Exception encountered while rendering panel as HTML".
  •  The firmware was enhanced such that SRCs B181F126, B181F127, and B181F129 are correctly logged, and no longer calls home unnecessarily for these SRCs.
  • The firmware was enhanced to more accurately describe the reason memory was deconfigured on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) memory deconfiguration screen.

4.0 How to Determine Currently Installed Firmware Level

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

For System i systems without an HMC: From a command line, issue DSPFMWSTS.

For System p systems without an HMC: From a command line, issue lsmcode.

Alternately, use the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) Welcome pane. The current server firmware  appears in the top right corner. Example: EL350_071.

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: ELXXX_YYY_ZZZ

Where XXX = release level

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/updupdates.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/powersys/v3r1m5/index.jsp?topic=/ipha5/fix_firm_no_hmc_aix.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 Firmware History

The Firmware History can be reviewed at the following url:

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