Power7 Entry Systems Firmware

Applies to:   8202-E4B, 8205-E6B, 8231-E2B, 8492-DW2 and 8493-SV2

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

Contents

1.0 Systems Affected

This package provides firmware for Power 710 (8231-E2B), Power 730 (8231-E2B), Power 720 (8202-E4B) and Power 740 (8205-E6B, 8492-DW2 and 8493-SV2)  servers only.

Attention:  This firmware should NOT be installed on Power 750 (8233-E8B) and Power 755 (8236-E8C) servers.

The firmware level in this package is:

1.1 Minimum HMC Code Level

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

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

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

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

2.0 Important Information

Warning

Installing any 720_xxx level of Firmware on the following systems (8233-E8B & 8236-E8C) is not supported.  Installation of the unsupported firmware will cause SRC B1813463 to be displayed, and prevent the system from powering on.  To recover from this condition reference the recovery procedure documented at the below url or contact your IBM support representative.
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/server/firmware/720_Recover.html

IPv6 Support and Limitations

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

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

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

Concurrent Firmware Updates

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

Memory Considerations for Firmware Upgrades

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:

01ALXXX_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, 01AL720_067_045 and 01AL740_067_053 are different service packs.

An installation is disruptive if:

Example: Currently installed release is AL710, new release is AL720 Example: AL720_120_120 is disruptive, no matter what level of AL720 is currently installed on the system Example: Currently installed service pack is AL720_120_120 and new service pack is AL720_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 AL720_126_120,  new service pack is AL720_143_120.

Firmware Information and Update Description

 
Filename Size Checksum
01AL720_082_066.rpm 34448861
 24554

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 01AL720_082_066.rpm

AL720
For Impact, Severity and other Firmware definitions, Please refer to the below 'Glossary of firmware terms' url:
http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/set2/sas/f/power5cm/home.html#termdefs
AL720_082_066

12/13/10		 Impact:  Function        Severity:  HIPER - High Impact/PERvasive, Should be installed as soon as possible.

New Features and Functions

  • Support for partition suspend/resume.  AIX 61 TL6 SP3 or later, or AIX 71 TL0 SP2 or later, is required for partition suspend/resume.
  • Support for 2 GB DIMMs (F/C 4525) on 8231-E2B systems.
  • Support for the PCIe G2 expansion feature (F/C 5685) on 8202-E4B and 8205-E6B systems.
  • Support for a new "field core override" option on the ASMI (advanced system management interface).  This option provides the capability to increase or decrease the number of active processor cores in the system.
  • Support for a new "acoustic mode" option on the ASMI (advanced system management interface).  The default is enabled; it must be disabled if solid state disk (SSD) drive F/C 1890 or 1909  is installed in the system.  Disabling this option increases the fan speeds to provide additional cooling to the SSD drives.

System firmware changes that affect all systems

  • HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused repeated reset/reloads of the service processor to occur after a hypervisor-initiated reset/reload of the service processor was completed.  That led to loss of communication between the service processor and the hypervisor (indicated by SRC B182951C).
  • The firmware was enhanced to allow the concurrent replacement of the control (operator) panel using the ASMI (advanced system management interface).
  • A problem was fixed that caused disks that were not bootable to be displayed in the system management services boot menus.  This problem also prevented the operating system level from being displayed for bootable hard disks in the system management services boot menus.
  • A problem was fixed that caused an error log indicating a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) error when no DLPAR operations were done, and unrecoverable SRCs BA180010 and BA250010 to be erroneously logged, when a recoverable enhanced error handling (EEH) error was logged on an I/O adapter.
  • A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1561111 to be erroneously logged, and the control (operator) panel to erroneously deactivated, if there is no activity on the control panel for several weeks.
  • A problem was fixed that caused the system to hang at C700406E during boot.
  • A problem was fixed that caused the platform to become unresponsive; this was indicated by an "incomplete" state on the HMC.  When this problem occurred, the partitions on the managed system became unresponsive.

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.
  • A problem was fixed that caused the system ID to change, which caused software licensing problems, when a live partition mobility operation was done where the target system was an 8203-E4A or an 8204-E8A.
  • PARTITION-DEFERRED:  A problem was fixed that caused SRC BA210000 to be erroneously logged on the target system when a partition was moved (using Live Partition Mobility) from a Power7 system to a Power6 system.
  • A problem was fixed that caused SRC BA280000 to be erroneously logged on the target system when a partition was moved (using Live Partition Mobility) from a Power7 system to a Power6 system.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a partition to hang following a partition migration operation (using Live Partition Mobility) from a system running Ax720 system firmware to a system running Ex340, or older, system firmware.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a system or partition running Linux to crash when the "serv_config -l" command was run.
  • On systems managed by an HMC, a problem was fixed that caused the managed system to go to the incomplete state on the HMC.
  • On systems using the HEA broadcast/multicast application to send and receive millions of packets, such as video streaming, the packet storm mitigation algorithm was enhanced so that a packet will only be dropped when a packet storm is detected.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a partition to fail to reboot with SRC B2001230 and word 3 = 000000BF.  This failure can be seen on a partition that owns a PCI, PCI-E, or PCI-X slot.
  • On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer attached, and a PCI-E adapter in the CEC, a problem was fixed that caused the system to crash during a page migration operation with SRC B700F103.
  • On systems managed by the IVM (integrated virtualization manager), a problem was fixed that caused the minimum memory for the IVM partition to drop below 512 MB.  This caused the IVM to erroneously indicate that the partition memory was not synchronized, even after the partition was rebooted.  This problem might also cause the minimum memory for other partitions to be lowered unexpectedly.
AL720_066_066

09/17/10		 Impact:  New            Severity:  New
GA Level

4.0 How to Determine Currently Installed Firmware Level

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

For standalone system running IBM i without an HMC: From a command line, issue DSPFMWSTS.

For standalone system running IBM AIX 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: AL710_yyy.

5.0 Downloading the Firmware Package

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

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

6.0 Installing the Firmware

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

Example: ALXXX_YYY_ZZZ

Where XXX = release level


For details on installing the firmware, perform the following steps:

1. Go to the IBM Power System Hardware Information Center at:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/powersys/v3r1m5/index.jsp

2. Select the platform and model you are working with.

3. Select from the following options: 

IBM i Systems

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

NOTE: For IBM i Operating System managed systems (no HMC attached) - The following IBM i PTFs must be applied prior to installing AL720_082 (MH01240):
These PTFs can be ordered at the following link:  http://www-912.ibm.com/s_dir/slkbase.nsf/ibmscdirect/7515CEFBA9CC72F8862576D200569B60

7.0 Change History


Date
 Description
March 03, 2011
 Description updates to the 'New Features and Functions' section for firmware level AL720_082.
January 05, 2011 Added required PTFs for IBM i Operating System managed systems (no HMC attached).