Question & Answer
Question
PCIe3 SAS adapters may fail after being powered off. The IPL of a partition from a powered off state may fail if any of the following PCIe3 adapters are the Load Source adapter. 57D7, 57D8, 57B4, 57CE, 57DC
Answer
Environment: POWER7 and POWER8 systems with PCIe3 SAS adapters.
Issue: PCIe3 SAS adapters may fail after being powered off. The IPL of a partition from a powered off state may fail if any of the following PCIe3 adapters are the Load Source adapter:
57D7, 57D8, 57B4, 57CE, 57DC
Additional symptoms: SRCBA180020, SRCB200308C, SRCB2004158, SRC57xx9076 and/or "Unknown status" displayed for the SAS adapter within the HMC partition I/O properties.
Solution: If this situation is encountered, the SAS RAID adapter is failing and must be replaced. Platform error SRCBA180020 will identify the slot that contains the failing adapter if the system will not boot/IPL server/partition.
Note: There is no run-time exposure to this problem. This unique failure mode has the potential to surface only during adapter hardware start-up diagnostics that are run during a cold IPL of the adapter. This problem is most often seen after a disruptive system firmware update where the partitions have been powered off.
If a partition is unable to boot/IPL from internal disk or DVD after it has been powered off, the SAS RAID adapters controlling the Load Source are most likely failing. On servers with dual SAS RAID adapters it is possible to have both adapters fail simultaneously during power on. Contact your Hardware Service Provider for assistance with this issue.
The following table lists the feature codes of the parts exposed to this issue:
Prevention for IBM i partitions:
SAS RAID adapter firmware level 15511800 prevents this problem from occurring and is available from Fix Central for the adapter types listed above.
For IBM i, apply the following PTF(s):
V7R1M0: MF63030
V7R2M0: MF63031
V7R3M0: MF63032
Note:
IBM i OS will not log an error, but a second partition IPL must be performed to complete the firmware update if updating to level 15511800 from any level prior to level 15511300. To avoid the requirement to perform a second partition IPL, verify that at least one of the following PTFs is permanently applied for each respective release of IBM i OS:
V7R1M0 PTF MF62582 or MF62990
V7R2M0 PTF MF62583 or MF62972
V7R3M0 PTF MF62584 or MF62970
A second partition IPL must be performed after applying this PTF to complete the update if none of the previously listed PTFs has been permanently applied.
Prevention for AIX partitions:
RAID adapter firmware level 15511800 prevents this problem from occurring and is available from Fix Central for the adapter types listed above.
| Note: A SAS_ERR1 will be logged during each IPL on AIX if updating to level 15511800 from any level prior to level 15511300. SAS Adapter firmware level 15511800 must be installed a second time if this situation occurs. |
Was this topic helpful?
Document Information
Modified date:
18 December 2019
UID
nas8N1021908