Flagday: BIOS upate required
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:39:09 -0700
From: Sherry Moore <sherry dot moore at sun dot com>
To: on-all at eng dot sun dot com, onnv-gate at onnv dot eng dot sun dot com
Subject: Flagday: BIOS upate required
If you do not maintain or develop on MP systems with AMD Opteron
processors, you can ignore this message.
If you have MP systems with Opteron processors, you *MUST* update the
BIOS to the latest versions. If you would like to know why, please
read the detailed explanation in the latter part of this message.
The latest versions of the BIOS for Sun V40z (4-way Stinger), Sun V20z
(2-way Stinger), AMD Quartet (4-way Celestica) and AMD Serenade are
available at
/ws/onnv-gate/public/amd-bios
To update the complete firmware package, including PPCboot, PRS, SP,
PIC and BIOS (highly recommended, or you might run into random failures
during flashupdate), for V40z, please follow these instructions:
http://rubik.sfbay/~stinger/NSV/v2.3/Experimental_2.3.0.11c/stinger4-update.txt
For V20z, please follow these instructions:
http://rubik.sfbay/~stinger/NSV/v2.3/Experimental_2.3.0.11c/stinger2-update.txt
To update the BIOS only (not recommended, use at your own risk) on V40z
and V20z systems, log onto the system's SP and do the following (use
129.146.17.60 in place of onnv.eng if nameservices aren't set up on
your SP):
$ platform set power state -f off
$ sp add mount -r onnv.eng:/export/gate/public -l /mnt
$ cd /mnt/amd-bios
$ platform set os state update-bios \
{v20z-2.3.0.11, v40z-2.33.7.2-single-core, v40z-2.33.5.2-dual-core}
$ sp delete mount /mnt
To update the BIOS on Quartets and Serenades, unzip the corresponding
.zip file onto a DOS floppy or USB drive and boot the machine into DOS.
For the Quartets, run
A:> phlash16.exe /c PQTEx0-7.fla
For the Serenades, run
A:> FLMSNBB.BAT
There are also prepared floppy images if you don't have a DOS floppy
handy. Simply run
$ dd if={serenade,quartet}-floppy of=/dev/diskette bs=18k
============================================================================
Detailed Explanation
There have been many errata associated with various revisions of the
Opteron processors. Some of them, such as 106, 122 and 131, could
cause panics, data corruption, hard hangs or machine check errors.
Such errata are usually fixed in newer revisions of the processor, and
workarounds are typically provided in the form of new BIOS releases for
older processors.
The putback of
6285647 x_call related fields need to be declared volatile
will effectively raise the likelihood of hitting AMD Opteron Erratum
106 on systems with 4 or more revision CG or older processors to 100%.
While 2P systems are not as likely to hang, erratum 106 does apply to
them as well. Other errata, such as 122, affect all revisions, while
131 affects all systems with 4 or more processors.
Considering the big matrix of the errata impact on various systems, it
is highly recommended that you update the firmware on any MP systems to
the latest to avoid potential problems. If in doubt, update your BIOS.
In addition, due to a mistake on the part of the BIOS vendor, the
update for V40z systems released earlier only contains a workaround for
AMD erratum 131 for dual-core systems. If you have single-core V40zs,
you will need to do one more BIOS update to get the proper workaround.
To determine if you have single- or dual-core processors, type
# psrinfo -vp
If the output says
The physical processor has 2 virtual processors (0, 1)
you have dual-core processors.
We have also gotten a new BIOS release (PQTEx0-7.fla) for AMD Quartets
which will work with C0 processors.
If you have Opteron systems from other vendors, you should download and
apply their latest firmware to avoid potential problems.
============================================================================
--
Sherry dot Moore at Sun dot Com, Solaris Kernel Development, http://blogs.sun.com/sherrym
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