Processor state considerations

There are several things you should consider about processor states.

Physical processors are represented in the ODM database by objects named procn where n is a decimal number that represents the physical processor number. Like any other device represented in the ODM database, processor objects have a state, such as Defined/Available, and attributes.

The state of a proc object is always Available as long as the corresponding processor is present, regardless of whether it is usable. The state attribute of a proc object indicates if the processor is used and, if not, the reason. This attribute can have three values:

Item	Description
enable	The processor is used.
disable	The processor has been dynamically deallocated.
faulty	The processor was declared defective by the firmware at startup time.

If an ailing processor is successfully deallocated, its state goes from enable to disable. Independently of AIX, this processor is also flagged in the firmware as defective. Upon reboot, the deallocated processor will not be available and will have its state set to faulty. The ODM proc object, however, is still marked Available. You must physically remove the defective CPU from the system board or remove the CPU board (if possible) for the proc object to change to Defined.

In the following example, processor proc4 is working correctly and is being used by the operating system, as shown in the following output:

	# lsattr -EH -l proc4
	attribute	value			description		user_settable

	state		enable			Processor state		False
	type		PowerPC_RS64-III	Processor type		False
		#

When processor proc4 gets a predictive failure, it gets deallocated by the operating system, as shown in the following:

	# lsattr -EH -l proc4
	attribute	value			description		user_settable

	state		disable			Processor state		False
	type		PowerPC_RS64-III	Processor type		False
		#

At the next system restart, processor proc4 is reported by firmware as defective, as shown in the following:

	# lsattr -EH -l proc4
	attribute	value			description		user_settable

	state		faulty			Processor state		False
	type		PowerPC_RS64-III	Processor type		False
		#

But the status of processor proc4 remains Available, as shown in the following:

	# lsdev -CH -l proc4
	name		status			location		description
	
	proc4		Available		00-04			Processor
	#