Power6 High-End System Firmware

06/06/11

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• PARTITION-DEFERRED:  A problem was fixed that prevented virtual LANs (VLANs) in a VIOS with partition ID of 1 from being displayed as bootable devices in the system management services (SMS) menus.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a hardware management console (HMC) from being permanently disconnected using the Advanced System Management Services (ASMI) menus.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the timed-power-on command from turning the system back on if the service processor's clock was adjusted to an earlier time.  Adjustment of the service processor's clock could have been done through the operating system or the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI).  This problem could occur during the fall when clocks are set back when daylight saving time ends, for example..
• A problem was fixed that caused certain service processor error log entries with a severity of "predictive", and a failing subsystem of "service processor firmware", to be erroneously converted to "informational".
• A problem was fixed that caused the HMC2 port on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) to erroneously default to static IP addressing instead of dynamic.
• A problem was fixed that caused a firmware installation to fail with SRC B181EF7C.
• A problem was fixed that prevented processor resources from being moved to another partition by a DLPAR (dynamic LPAR) operation.
• A problem was fixed that prevented partitions from booting.
• The firmware was enhanced to list the attached devices when viewing the adapter information for a partition profile on the HMC GUI.
  
• A problem was fixed that could cause the target partition to crash after a successful P6 to P7 partition migration.  Possible AIX error log entries include:  label: DSI_PROC, resource:  SYSVMM, with description: "DATA STORAGE INTERRUPT, PROCESSOR".  Other partition-related crash descriptors may also be logged.
• A problem was fixed that could cause AIX error log entries following a successful partition migration.  Possible AIX error log entries include: label: RTAS_ERROR, resource: sysplanar0, with description: "INTERNAL ERROR CODE".  Other errors may also be logged.
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition to crash with SRC BA330002 after several concurrent installations of system firmware, or partition migrations, without a reboot.
• A problem was fixed that caused multiple DR_DMA_MIGRATE_FAIL entries in the AIX error log.
• A problem was fixed that caused the installation of some versions of Linux to fail.
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition migration or partition hibernation operation to hang with the partition left in the "suspending" state.
• The firmware was enhanced to log SRC B1768B76 as informational instead of unrecoverable.
• 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.
• A problem was fixed that caused the managed system to go to the incomplete state on the HMC.
• On systems with a F/C 5803 or 5873 I/O expansion drawer, a problem was fixed that caused SRC B7006907 to be erroneously logged.

System firmware changes that affect certain systems

• On systems running Advanced Memory Sharing (AMS), a problem was fixed that caused an AMS partition to crash with SRC B700F103.  This problem may occur when reducing the size of the AMS pool (or doing a hot node repair on a model MMB or MHB) at the same time as dynamically creating an AMS partition, or changing an AMS partition's maximum memory.
  
• On systems using logical host Ethernet adapter (LHEA) ports, a problem was fixed that caused the activation of a partition that is using an LHEA logical port (LPORT) to hang at C2008104, and the HMC to show an Incomplete status for the system.

02/21/11

• HIPER:  IBM testing has uncovered a potential undetected data corruption issue when a mobility operation is performed on an AMS (Active Memory Sharing) partition.  The data corruption can occur in rare instances due to a problem in IBM firmware.  This issue was discovered during internal IBM testing, and has not been reported on any customer system. IBM recommends that systems running on ES340_075 or later move to ES350_103 to pick up the fix for this potential problem.  (Firmware levels older than ES340_075 are not exposed to the problem.)
• On systems with a F/C 5803 or 5873 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 with a F/C 5803 or 5873 I/O drawer attached, a problem was fixed that caused a partition to crash during a page migration operation.
  
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition to crash with SRC BA330002 after several concurrent installations of system firmware, or partition migrations, without a reboot.
• A problem was fixed that caused AIX licensing issues when migrating a partition from a P6 to a P7 system.
  

10/26/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused the HMC to show the server's status as incomplete, and SRC B7000602 to be logged against SFLPHMCCMDTASK in serviceable events.  This problem can also cause the system to crash when it occurs.
• 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 log SRC B181D30B as informational instead of predictive.
• The firmware was enhanced to list the attached devices when viewing the adapter information for a partition profile on the HMC GUI. 
• A problem was fixed that caused the hypervisor to issue almost continuous reset/reload requests to the service processor.

• On systems using the IPv6 protocol, a problem was fixed that caused valid link local and unique link local addresses to be erroneously invalidated.  This prevented the port with that address from being used for network boot or network installation.
  

06/30/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that could result in a system checkstop while running floating point computations.  Although this is a high-impact problem, it has a very low probability of occurring.
  
• 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.
  
• 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.
• The firmware was enhanced to improve the callouts when NVRAM corruption is detected in the bulk power controller's (BPC's) service processor.
• On systems running ES350_xxx firmware, a problem was fixed the prevented the reset/reload bit from being set correctly in a service processor error log entry.

03/15/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash 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.
• 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.

• 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 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.
• 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.

11/23/09

New Features and Functions:

• 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.

• 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 ES340, 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.
•  The firmware was enhanced such that SRCs B181F126, B181F127, and B181F129 are correctly logged, and no longer calls home unnecessarily for these SRCs.
• 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 when a certain type of hardware failure occurs in a bulk power controller (BPC), the appropriate errors will be logged instead of SRCs B1818601 and B1818611, which indicate a firmware failure.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B181D312 to be erroneously logged, and a call home to be erroneously made.
• On systems with 24" I/O drawers, a problem was fixed that might cause a partition to crash, with a system reboot required for recovery, when a F/C 5797 or 5798 drawer was concurrently added.
• The firmware was enhanced to more accurately describe the reason memory was deconfigured on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) memory deconfiguration screen.
• On systems using the HEA (host Ethernet adapter), also know as the Integrated Virtual Ethernet (IVE) function, a problem was fixed that caused link failures if the HEA was connected to certain third-party Ethernet switches.  A problem causing an unexpected increment in the Pxs_TXIME register, but not affecting network performance, was also fixed.