PCI Device Resource Allocation Failure noticed during Boot Time for IBM Server 3650

After plugging on a HBA, Quad-Port Ethernet Card, Low latency TOE Card in additon to my RAID Controller. On boot, I saw this error "PCI Device Resource Allocation Failure" during boot time. But I did not pay much attention.

Until the system boot, I realize that my Low Latency TOE Card work but with no communication. I thought it was a card / cable issue and I correspondingly change it. But the effect was still the same. No communication still. Very puzzling.

In the IBM Website, there is an article that might give a hint. 1801 PCI resource error using CTRL-H with 2x MegaRAID 8480 - IBM System x.

From what I infer from the article, it is due to insufficient ROM Space for that many devices. And there is need to turn off unneeded ROM BIOS apps/PXE boot options.

What I did was to.....

Disable Planar Ethernet PXE/DHCP

1. Press F1 when prompted on boot
2. Go to Setup Option
3. At the Option of "Planer Ethernet PXE/DHCP", turn it to Disabled

If the above does not eliminate the error, do the following
Disable unrequired PCI ROM Slot

1. Press F1 when prompted on boot
2. Go to Advanced Setup
3. Select PCI Settings
4. Select PCI ROM Control Execution

Within the "PCI ROM Control Execution" Panel, select the slot number for the secondary controller and disable that slot.

Reboot, you should see the error gone.


For more information see

1. 1801 PCI resource error using CTRL-H with 2x MegaRAID 8480 - IBM System x.
2. Connecting ESX to SAN: PCI Device resource allocation failure
3. x3650 PCI Device Resource Allocation Failure

SGI® Altix® UV Scales Microsoft® Windows Server® to Its Maximum

Interesting hardware achievement for SGI Altix UV which is able to scale Four Times the Scale of HP, 2.6 Times the Scale of IBM.

From the website, SGI® Altix® UV Scales Microsoft® Windows Server® to Its Maximum, this table summarise SGI Altix UV achievement......

Vendor	Platform	Architecture	Physical Cores
SGI	UV 1000	Intel x86	256
IBM*	X3950 M2	Intel x86	96
HP**	Proliant DL980 G7	Intel x86	64

Blade hangs on boot and "FW/BIOS, firmware progress (ABR Status) FW/BIOS ROM corruption" message in AMM

If you see and encounter error

Blade hangs on boot and "FW/BIOS, firmware progress (ABR Status) FW/BIOS ROM corruption" message in AMM - IBM BladeCenter HS22, HS22V

Symptoms
When booting BladeCenter HS22 or HS22V with Integrated Management Module (IMM) build yuoo84c installed, the blade may hang at the "UEFI Platform Initializing" screen. The hang will be accompanied by the following event in the chassis Advanced Management Module (AMM) log:

FW/BIOS, firmware progress (ABR Status) FW/BIOS ROM corruption

Affected Systems:
The system may be any of the following IBM servers:

• BladeCenter HS22, type 1936, any model
• BladeCenter HS22, type 7870, any model
• BladeCenter HS22V, type 1949, any model
• BladeCenter HS22V, type 7871, any model 

Workaround
This failure may be reduced by disabling Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) support for the IMM. This can be done via the following steps:

1. Boot the blade to the F1 Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) setup screen.
2. Select "System Settings" and press Enter
3. Select "Integrated Management Module" and press Enter
4. Select "Network Configuration" and press Enter
5. Change "IP6" setting to "Disable"

Occasionally, the failure can be recovered by restarting the IMM. If this is not successful, then it is necessary to reseat the blade in the chassis to recover. After a reseat, the blade will boot normally.

Additional Information
This error only occurs at boot time so production servers that are up and running are not at risk.

For more information, see Blade hangs on boot and "FW/BIOS, firmware progress (ABR Status) FW/BIOS ROM corruption" message in AMM - IBM BladeCenter HS22, HS22V

Memory retention Failure, unflushed cach lost on IBM Server using ServeRAID-8k

This week we encountered this critical error on our IBM Server using ServeRAID-8K. The Server rebooted and since this server was hosting our VM, several of our VM was disconnected.

Power-cycling didn't help. Bu thanks God there is one cool writeup by a system administration that encounter the same problem. His description of the problem of the ServeRAID-8K and how he tried to fix it is nicely documented.
 Tuesday Outage: It’s RAID-tastic!

To resolve the issues, we just update the RAID-8K firmware. See IBM ServeRAID-8i, 8k, 8k-l and 8s BIOS and firmware update CD v5.2.0 (Build 16002) - IBM BladeCenter and System x

After upgrading the firmware, the problem was fixed!

Checking the Virtualisation Technology on AMD and Intel

You may want to check whether your hardware supports Virtualisation for Intel and AMD chipsets.

# egrep "flags.*:.*(svm|vmx)" /proc/cpuinfo

If there is output, your hardware supports virtualisation.

Other related Topics includes

1. Determining if Intel Virtualization Technology or AMD Virtualization is enabled in the BIOS without rebooting
2. Detecting Intel VT and AMD-V 
   
   

Hangs at "UEFI platform initialization" for IBM BladeCenter HS22

Taken from IBM  at "UEFI platform initialization" after backflash - IBM BladeCenter HS22"

After a series of reset and reboot, one of my HS22 suffered a hang at UEFI platform initialization and cannot boot into the OS. Looked around for solution.

Source:
After flashing blade Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) from version 1.07 (build 46A) to any earlier version, the blade hangs in Power On Self Test (POST) during the next reboot. The following message is displayed at the top of the screen "UEFI Platform Initialization"

Immediate Workaround:
If the blade is in the hung condition, then it can be recovered by removing the system board battery to reset the blade settings to default.

Complete the following steps:

1. Remove the blade from the chassis.
2. Remove the system board battery.
3. Wait 30 seconds and reinstall the battery.
4. Reinstall the blade and power on.
5. Last but not least, please take a good look at the BIOS and reconfigure your BIOS serttings if necessary.

Solution:
Download the fixes patches from IBM Fix Central Site

Have tried it work...

Chelsio iWARP Installation and Setup Guide for CentOS 5.4

Most of this material for this blog entry is taken the documentation Guide named Chelsio iWARP installation and setup guide (pdf) . The Blog Entry ”Chelsio iWARP Installation and Setup Guide for CentOS 5.4” (Linux Cluster) is an modification from a user’s perspective of the original document from Chelsio.

Chelsio iWARP Drivers compatibility with Chelsio Linux drivers

The documentation is extracted from Chelsio iWARP Installation and Setup Guide and is formatted on my blog  Chelsio iWARP Drivers compatibility with Chelsio Linux drivers (Linux Cluster)

Here is a listing for the latest OFED to the latest Chelsio Drivers and Firmware

OFED Package	Cxgb3toe-W.X.YY.ZZZ driver	Firmware	Supported/Not Supported/Not Tested
OFED-1.5.1	Cxgb3toe-1.4.1.2	7.10.0	Not Supported
OFED-1.5.1	Cxgb3toe-1.4.1.2	7.8.0	Supported
OFED-1.5.1	Cxgb3toe-1.4.1.2	7.4.0	Not Supported

Installing Chelsio T3 10GE Driver on CentOS 5.4

Here the documentation on installing Chelsio Chelsio T3 10GE Driver on CentOS 5.4 (x86-64). For more information, see Installing Chelsio 10GE Driver on CentOS 5.4

Chelsio OEM-IBM Download

If you are using Chelsio OEM Driver for IBM Blade, X and P series, do go to  Chelsio OEM-IBM Download

The download page has some interesting articles

1. Chelsio Cards & Cables Compatibility:-CX4 Adapters
   http://chelsio.com/assetlibrary/pdf/CableConfigs.pdf  
2. IBM Redbooks
   Chelsio 10GbE Adapters for IBM System Cluster 1350 and IBM iDataPlex
   Chelsio 10 GbE Adapters for IBM Power Systems
3. Chelsio Adapters driver Download, Installation, Configuration, troubleshooting, support
   http://service.chelsio.com/  
4. IBM iDataplex and Cluster 1350 - Drivers, Firmware and Software (Red Hat 5.3
   http://www.ibm.com/   
5. IBM Announcement Letter
   http://www.ibm.com/
6. IBM system Cluster 1350 Information Center
   http://www.ibm.com/

Deploying Big-IP LTM with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services

If you are deploying vwith Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services, you will find these articles useful for the deployment......


For more information, read my blog Deploying Big-IP LTM with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services

Detecting Intel VT and AMD-V

Here is a simple and useful short writeup on how to Detect Intel VT and AMD-V and enabling it to ensure you can have the virtualisation extension for your Hyper-V, KVM or other Hyper-Visor that make use of hardware virtualisation

Detecting Intel VT and AMD-V from vmjournal.wordpress.com

Advanced Management Module firmware v3.54L (BPET54L) - IBM BladeCenter dated 7th Jul 2010

There is a new update for Advanced Management Module Firmware v3.54L (BPET54L) for IBM Blade Centre dated 23rd July 2010.  With the apply of this updates, one of my blade server was finally rediscovered....

As for the instruction how to update, here the setup instruction
ftp://download2.boulder.ibm.com/ecc/sar/CMA/XSA/ibm_fw_amm_bpet54l_anyos_noarch.txt


IBM BladeCenter E Chassis (7967, 1881, 8677)
IBM BladeCenter H Chassis (7989, 8852)
IBM BladeCenter HT Chassis (8740, 8750)
IBM BladeCenter S Chassis (1948, 7779)
IBM BladeCenter S Express
IBM BladeCenter HC10 (7996)
IBM BladeCenter HS12 (8028, 1916, 8014)
IBM BladeCenter HS20 (8832, 1884, 8678, 8843, 7981, 1883)
IBM BladeCenter HS21 (1885, 8853, 7995)
IBM BladeCenter HS21 XM (1915, 7995)
IBM BladeCenter HS22 (7870, 1936, 7809)
IBM BladeCenter HS22V (7871, 1949)
IBM BladeCenter HS40 (8839)
IBM BladeCenter HX5 (7872, 1909)
IBM BladeCenter JS20 (8842)
IBM BladeCenter JS21 (7988, 8844)
IBM BladeCenter JS23 (7778)
IBM BladeCenter JS43 (7778)
IBM BladeCenter LS20 (8850)
IBM BladeCenter LS21 (7971)
IBM BladeCenter LS22 (7901)
IBM BladeCenter LS41 (7972)
IBM BladeCenter LS42 (7902)
IBM BladeCenter PS700 (8406)
IBM BladeCenter PS701 (8406)
IBM BladeCenter PS702 (8406)
IBM BladeCenter JS22
IBM BladeCenter QS21
IBM BladeCenter QS22

How to know Hyperthreading is activated from CPU Information generated by dmidecode

According to Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology

"Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology (Intel® HT Technology) is available on laptop, desktop, server, and workstation systems. Look for systems with the Intel® HT Technology logo which your system vendor has verified utilize Intel® HT Technology".

As System Administrator, how do we detect the Hyperthreading in Linux Server? Which CPU are physical and which is logical? For those running HPC, this could be important as you are more interested in number of physical CPU rather than Logical CPU count.

For more information on dmidecode. See dmidecode - Finding the hardware details remotely

Well here come dmidecode to the rescue:

Physical CPU Result (Notice the Status: "Status: Populated, Enabled")

Physical CPU
Handle 0x000C, DMI type 4, 32 bytes
Processor Information
Socket Designation: Socket 1 CPU 1
Type: Central Processor
Family: Xeon
Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
ID: 43 0F 00 00 01 03 00 00
Signature: Type 0, Family 15, Model 4, Stepping 3
Flags:
FPU (Floating-point unit on-chip)
CX8 (CMPXCHG8 instruction supported)
APIC (On-chip APIC hardware supported)
Version: Intel Xeon
Voltage: 1.5 V
External Clock: 200 MHz
Max Speed: 4000 MHz
Current Speed: 3800 MHz
Status: Populated, Enabled
Upgrade: ZIF Socket
L1 Cache Handle: 0x0004
L2 Cache Handle: 0x0005
L3 Cache Handle: Not Provided

Logical CPU Result (Notice the Status: "Status: Unpopulated")

Handle 0x000D, DMI type 4, 32 bytes
Processor Information
Socket Designation: Socket 2 CPU 2
Type: Unknown
Family: Unknown
Manufacturer: Not Specified
ID: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Version: Not Specified
Voltage: 1.5 V
External Clock: 200 MHz
Max Speed: 4000 MHz
Current Speed: 3800 MHz
Status: Unpopulated
Upgrade: ZIF Socket
L1 Cache Handle: 0x0006
L2 Cache Handle: 0x0007
L3 Cache Handle: Not Provided

Installing Wireless Driver on HP Mini 2140 with Fedora 13

Installing Fedora 13 on HP Mini Note 2140 is a breeze except that for the Broadcom 4312G 802.11b/g Wi-Fi Adapter will not be installed. To install the driver for Broadcom 4312G 802.11b/g Wi-Fi Adapter will not be installed, follow the excellent tutorial on Fedora Broadcom Linux STA Driver .

Step 1: Get a wired connection to the Internet.

Step 2: Configure RPM Fusion. Download both free and non-free repository

# rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm

# rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm 

Step 3: Install the Broadcom wireless driver package

# yum install broadcom-wl

Step 4: Finally Try loading the driver

# modprobe wl

If the modprobe doesn't work, just reboot

# reboot

Fstab and Device UUID on Fedora

When I added a Hard Disk on my Fedora box, I noticed that the /etc/fstab are already using UUID to mount disk.

Knowing UUID is quite essential if you wish to mount the drives using /etc/fstab especially for more current version of Linux. The advantage of using UUID is really identify the disk correctly and mitigate mounting issues caused by reordering of HDD

First thing first, you may want to list all the detected devices by UUID

# ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/

To list the UUID of a particular disk For example /dev/sdb1, you can use blkid command

# blkid /dev/sdb1

Much thanks to fstab with uuid by Linux by Example

" Correctable ECC memory error logging limit reached " Error found on IBM H22 Server

The Error Light Emitting Diode (LED) is illuminated on the chassis and the BladeCenter HS22 blade server front information panel. The Advanced Management Module (AMM) system status indicates that there is a " correctable ECC memory error logging limit reached " error. The AMM logs the following errors:

19 E Blade_05 12/08/09, 11:29:06 (octans012) Correctable memory error logging limit reached



The memory errors occurs in the following BladeCenter HS22 configuration:

• CPU-C states [Enable]
• Thermal Mode [Normal] double refresh rate
• 4 GB Samsung VLP DIMMs installed, Option 44T1488, Field Replaceable Unit (FRU) 44T1498

Method 1: Change Thermal Mode setting (preferred method)

1. Boot the blade into the F1 "System Configuration and Boot Management" screen. Highlight "System Settings". Press Enter and select "Memory". Select "Thermal Mode" and change the setting to "Performance".
2. Press the Esc key twice to get to "System Configuration and Boot Management" and then select "Save Settings" and "Exit Setup".
3. Follow the instructions on the next screen to exit the "Setup Utility".
4. Power the blade off for the changes to take effect and restart.

Changing "Normal" mode to "Performance" mode affects the way that the Dual In-Line Memory Modules (DIMMs) are refreshed. This results in a DIMM temperature warning message occurring at a 10 degree lower temperature. This causes no impact in most industry standard data centers.

For information on the error and alternative solution, see AMM "Correctable ECC memory error logging limit reached" - IBM BladeCenter HS22

PCI Utilities

The PCI Utilities are a collection of programs for inspecting and manipulating configuration of PCI devices, all based on a common portable library libpci which offers access to the PCI configuration space on a variety of operating systems.

The utilities includes:

1. lspci
2. setpci

This utilities are usually installed by default for most Distribution. Definitely a must-installed for CentOS. This handy utility cross check the database and provide us with a more useful name.....

If you wish to install it on a RedHat Derivative Linux, just do a

yum install pciutils

Which RAID Level is appropriate?

There is a excellent article by Adaptec - Which RAID Level is Right for Me? on RAID.

Installing Linux Mint 8 Universal Edition on HP 2133

Installing Linux Mint 8 was a breeze on HP 2133 (WXGA). According to Linux blogs, HP 2133 has propriety Via Chrome 9 graphic controller which causes a lot of issues of getting the graphics to display properly for earlier version of Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

But with Linux Mint 8, the installation was very smooth. The only minor issue was that the Broadcom Wifi has to be installed via the "Hardware Drivers" found in the control panel.  Choose the "Broadcom STA wireless driver" and your HP 2133 will be up with no time.

Linux Mint 8 works flawlessly with mobile broadband such as the Huawei E220.

My favorite desktop OS with my favourite netbook.....