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).

Although the Minimum HMC Code level for this firmware is listed above,  HMC level V7 R7.2.0 with PTF MH01276 (Service Pack 3), or higher is suggested for this firmware level.

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/

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

NOTES:
                -You must be logged in as hscroot in order for the firmware installation to complete correctly.
                - Systems Director Management Console (SDMC) does not support this System Firmware level.

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

Downgrading firmware from any given release level to an earlier release level is not recommended.
If you feel that it is necessary to downgrade the firmware on your system to an earlier release level, please contact your next level of support.

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

Firmware Release Level upgrades and Service Pack updates may consume additional system memory.
Server firmware requires memory to support the logical partitions on the server. The amount of memory required by the server firmware varies according to several factors.
Factors influencing server firmware memory requirements include the following:
Generally, you can estimate the amount of memory required by server firmware to be approximately 8% of the system installed memory. The actual amount required will generally be less than 8%. However, there are some server models that require an absolute minimum amount of memory for server firmware, regardless of the previously mentioned considerations.

Additional information can be found at:
  http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/powersys/v3r1m5/topic/p7hat/iphatlparmemory.htm

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_113_066.rpm 33818527
 35280

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_113_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

The complete Firmware Fix History for this Release Level can be reviewed at the following url:
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/server/firmware/AL-Firmware-Hist.html
AL720_113_066

06/28/12		 Impact: Availability          Severity:  SPE

New Features and Functions

  • PARTITION-DEFERRED: Support for Live Partition Mobility (LPM) between systems running Ax720 system firmware, and 8246-L2S systems.

System firmware changes that affect all systems

  • The firmware was enhanced to increase the threshold of soft NVRAM errors on the service processor to 32 before SRC B15xF109 is logged.  (Replacement of the service processor is recommended if more than one B15xF109 is logged per week.)
  • The firmware was enhanced to call out the correct field replaceable units (FRUs) when SRC B124E504 with description "Chnl init TO due to SN stuck in recovery" was logged.
  • A problem was fixed that caused informational SRC A70047FF, which may indicate that the Anchor (VPD) card should be replaced, to be erroneously logged again after the Anchor card was replaced.
  • A problem was fixed that caused booting from a virtual fibre channel tape device to fail with SRC B2008105.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) add operation to fail on an empty PCI slot that is not hot-pluggable.
  • The Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) menus were enhanced to more clearly indicate which processor cores were deconfigured by the Field Core Override option (F/C 2319).
  • A problem was fixed that caused the PCI slot LED behavior to be inconsistent after a service processor reset.
  • On 8202-E4B and 8205-E6B systems, the firmware was enhanced to call out a failing VRM, instead of the memory card on which the VRM is plugged, if the VRM fails when the system is booting.
  • The firmware resolves undetected N-mode stability problems and improves error reporting on the feature code (F/C) 5802 and 5877 I/O drawer power subsystem.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
  • The firmware was enhanced to fix a potential performance degradation on systems utilizing the stride-N stream prefetch instructions dcbt (with TH=1011) or dcbtst (with TH=1011).  Typical applications executing these algorithms include High Performance Computing, data intensive applications exploiting streaming instruction prefetchs, and applications utilizing the Engineering and Scientific Subroutine Library (ESSL) 5.1.
  • A problem was fixed that caused the hypervisor to hang during a concurrent operation on a F/C 5802, 5803, 5873 or 5877 I/O drawer.  Recovering from the hypervisor hang required a platform reboot.
  • A problem was fixed that impacted performance if profiling was enabled in one or more partitions.  Performance profiling is enabled:
        - In an AIX or VIOS partition using the tprof (-a, -b, -B, -E option) command or pmctl (-a, -E option) command.
        - In an IBM i partition when the PEX *TRACE profile (TPROF) collections or PEX *PROFILE collections are active.
        - In a Linux partition using the perf command, which is available in RHEL6 and SLES11; profiling with oprofile does not cause the problem.
AL720_108_066

01/23/12		 Impact: Availability           Severity:  HIPER - High Impact/PERvasive, Should be installed as soon as possible. 

System firmware changes that affect all systems

  • HIPER/Not pervasive:  A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B18187DA.
  • The firmware was enhanced to log SRC B1768B76 as informational instead of unrecoverable.
  • The firmware was enhanced to increase the threshold for recoverable SRC B113E504 so that the processor core reporting the SRC is not guarded out.  This prevents performance loss and the unnecessary replacement of processor modules.
  • A problem was fixed prevented a platform system dump from being deleted when the file system space on the service processor was full.
  • The firmware was enhanced to log SRC B1812A11 as informational, instead of "service action required", when the thermal/power management device (TPMD) is successfully reset.
  • The field replaceable unit (FRU) callouts were enhanced for SRC B181E550.
  • A problem was fixed that caused the message "500 - Internal Server Error." to be displayed when a setting was changed on the Advanced System Management Interface's (ASMI's) power on/off menu, when the change was attempted when the system was powering down.
  • A problem was fixed that erroneously caused SRC B1818601 to be logged and an FSP dump to be generated.
  • The firmware was enhanced to log an error, instead of causing a kernel panic, if a guard record was corrupted or truncated.
  • A problem was fixed that caused the wrong error code to be logged when the memory test took longer than normal during system boot.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a system's partition dates to revert back to 1969 after the service processor or its battery was replaced.  This occurred regardless of whether or not the service processor's time-of-day (TOD) clock was correctly set during the service action. 
  • A problem was fixed that caused the system to appear to hang, and a service processor reset/reload to occur, when multiple hardware errors occurred.
  • A problem was fixed that caused SRC B7005442 to be erroneously logged, and functional processor cores to be guarded out, when an error occurred in the operation system or an application.
  • A problem was fixed that erroneously caused SRC B1818601 to be logged and an FSP dump to be generated. 
  • A problem was fixed that caused multiple service processor dumps to be unnecessarily taken during a concurrent firmware update.  SRC B181EF9A, which indicates that the dump space on the service processor is full, was logged as a result.
  • The firmware was enhanced by the addition of a new option in the system management services (SMS) "Multi-boot" menu that facilitates zoning of physical and virtual fibre channel adapters.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a partition migration operation to abort when the partition has more than 4096 virtual slots.
  • A problem was fixed that caused SRC B18138B7 to be erroneously logged, and the service processor to terminate, when errors were continuously logged due to failing hardware.
  • On 8202-E4B and 8205-E6B systems, a problem was fixed that caused unrecoverable SRCs 11003116 and B1754201 to be erroneously logged.

System firmware changes that affect certain systems

  • HIPER/Pervasive on systems with a Virtual Input/Output (VIO) client running AIX, and with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer attached:  A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B700F103.
  • On systems running more than 100 logical partitions, a problem was fixed that caused a concurrent firmware installation to fail.
  • On systems running the Advanced Energy Manager (AEM), that terminates when in dynamic power save mode, a problem was fixed that caused SRCs B150B943, B113C660, and B113C661 to be erroneously logged when the system rebooted.
  • On systems running Active Memory Sharing (AMS), the firmware was enhanced to reduce the time required to migrate an AMS partition.
  • On systems running Active Memory Sharing (AMS), a problem was fixed that caused the system to crash during the creation of a logical partition (LPAR).
  • On systems running Active Memory Sharing (AMS), a problem was fixed that prevented an AMS partition from being activated with SRC B2006009.
  • On systems running VIOS, a problem was fixed that caused the location code in the output of the VIOS command "lsmap -npiv -all" to be incorrect.
  • A problem was fixed that caused a shared processor partition that is configured with two virtual processors and an entitled capacity of 1.0 processors to hang when only one processor is in the physical shared pool.
  • On systems running iSCSI, a problem was fixed that caused the system to hang when booting from an iSCSI device in the system management services (SMS) menus.
  • On the System Management Services (SMS) remote IPL (RIPL) menus, a problem was fixed that caused the SMS menu to continue to show that an Ethernet device is configured for iSCSI, even though the user has changed it to BOOTP.
  • On systems running the Advanced Energy Manager (AEM), a problem was fixed that caused the work rate calculation for a processor to be incorrect if the system dropped into safe mode.
  • A problem was fixed that prevented the operating system from being notified that a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer had recovered from an input power fault (SRC 10001512 or 10001522).
  • On systems managed by an HMC, a problem was fixed that caused a firmware installation from the HMC with the "do not auto accept" option selected to fail.
  • On 8202-E4B and 8205-E6B systems with F/C 5685, the PCI-E expansion riser installed, and running IBM i, a problem was fixed that caused
    empty slots on the riser to be displayed as "Unknown Position" instead of "Empty" in the SLIC Hardware Services Manager (HSM). 
  • On 8202-E4B and 8205-E6B systems running IBM i and with the PCIe expansion card, a problem was fixed that caused the status of the slots on the expansion card to be incorrectly reported in the Hardware Service Manager (HSM) tool, and extraneous IBM i vlogs to be generated, when a long PCI card was plugged into the expansion card.

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

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/powersys/v3r1m5/index.jsp?topic=/p7ha1/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=/p7ha5/fix_serv_firm_kick.htm

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 or higher(MH01240):
These PTFs can be ordered at the following link:  http://www-912.ibm.com/s_dir/slkbase.nsf/ibmscdirect/7515CEFBA9CC72F8862576D200569B60

7.0 Firmware History

The complete Firmware Fix History for this Release Level can be reviewed at the following url:
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/server/firmware/AL-Firmware-Hist.html