DSA Preboot hangs intermittently during load - IBM System x3755 M3 (Type 7164)

Resolving The Problem

Source

RETAIN tip: H197456

Symptom

When the user presses F2 to boot IBM Dynamic System Analysis (DSA) Preboot 3.20 on System x3755 M3 (Type 7164) the system hangs intermittently after the memory test while loading DSA Preboot.

Affected configurations

The system may be any of the following IBM servers:

• System x3755 M3, TYPE 7164, any model

The system is configured with at least one of the following:

• IBM Dynamic System Analysis (DSA) Preboot 3.20, any edition

This tip is not option specific.

Note: This does not imply that the network operating system will work under all combinations of hardware and software.

Please see the compatibility page for more information: http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/

Solution

This behavior will be corrected in a future release of DSA Preboot.

The target date for this release is scheduled for second quarter 2011.

The file is available by selecting the appropriate machine type on the 'Software and device drivers - IBM System x' web page, at the following URL:

• Software and device drivers - IBM System x

Workaround

This issue is intermittent. A cold boot improves the chances of booting successfully. The default setting for input/output memory management unit (IOMMU) in Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is "disabled." There will not be an issue if the user keeps this setting.

Additional information

DSA Preboot is not supported when IOMMU is enabled. DSA requires IOMMU to be set to default setting (disabled) in UEFI. The user may see the hang issue if IOMMU is enabled in setup. The user can change this setting by going into UEFI (F1) at Power On Self Test (POST).