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Asset ID: 1-71-1008075.1
Update Date:2010-06-16
Keywords:

Solution Type  Technical Instruction Sure

Solution  1008075.1 :   Sun Fire[TM] E25K, E20K, E15K, E12K : BERR panic events off PCI-X/PCI Quad Gigaswift ethernet card installed on schizo based hsPCI slot  


Related Items
  • Sun Fire E25K Server
  •  
  • Sun Fire E20K Server
  •  
  • Sun Fire 12K Server
  •  
  • Sun Fire 15K Server
  •  
Related Categories
  • GCS>Sun Microsystems>Servers>High-End Servers
  •  

PreviouslyPublishedAs
211118


Description
This document discusses Bus Error panic events ( BERR ) observed on Sun Fire [TM] E25K,
E20K, E15K, E12K resident domains deployed with PCI-X/PCI Quad Gigaswift ethernet card(s) ( X4445 ). This specific
anomaly is observed on domain environments running Solaris[TM] 8 and where the PCI-X/PCI Quad Gigaswift ethernet card(s)
is resident in Hot Swap PCI (hsPCI) I/O Board.

Steps to Follow
Sun Fire[TM] E25K, E20K, E15K, E12K : BERR panic events off PCI-X/PCI Quad 
Gigaswift ethernet card installed on schizo based hsPCI slot
For example, the BERR panic event as reproduced in a Solaris[TM] 8 domain environment resident in a Sun Fire 15000 platform loaded with the Solaris 8 KU, 117350-39 & ce driver patch, 111883-34 ( which deploys CE Ethernet Driver v1.154 ) :

/IO14/C5V0 PCI 476 B 33 33 1,0 ok pci-pci8086,537c.7/network (netw+ pci-bridge 
/IO14/C5V0 PCI 476 B 33 33 0,0 ok network-pci100b,35.30 SUNW,pci-x-qge 
/IO14/C5V0 PCI 476 B 33 33 1,0 ok network-pci100b,35.30 SUNW,pci-x-qge 
/IO14/C5V0 PCI 476 B 33 33 2,0 ok network-pci100b,35.30 SUNW,pci-x-qge 
/IO14/C5V0 PCI 476 B 33 33 3,0 ok network-pci100b,35.30 SUNW,pci-x-qge 

PCI-X/PCI Quad Gigaswift ethernet card ( X4445 ) deployed at IO14 slot C5V0.

The BERR panic event reproduced in the above domain OS environment is reported as follows :

WARNING: [AFT1] Bus Error (BERR) Event detected by CPU515 Privileged Data Access at TL=0, errID 0x00000479.9d38b088
AFSR 0x00100800.00000000 AFAR 0x00000479.00200000
Fault_PC 0x10035eb4

panic[cpu515]/thread=2a10027dd20: [AFT1] errID 0x00000479.9d38b088 BERR Error(s)

where the AFAR value reported off the above AFT1 event is isolated to the following I/O location :

redxl> parse pa 479.00200000
16 GB Nasm slice 30 = 0x1E, 4GB quadrant 1: IOBus IO14/P0/B1 (14.1.0.1)
Offset = 00200000

=> which translates to the I/O location housing the qge (X4445) card ( IO14 slot C5V0 ).

Under conditions as described by the domain OS environment above, there's very little yield in addressing the BERR panic condition via replacing the PCI-X/PCI Quad Gigaswift ethernet card(s) ( X4445 ) flagged by the BERR panic event. 

Instead, the affected site should explore the following course of action to workaround the BERR panic condition :

Replace the PCI-X/PCI Quad Gigaswift ethernet card(s) ( X4445 , QGE-X ) with the X4444, QGE PCI Quad Gigaswift ethernet card(s).

Efforts to replicate the same BERR panic condition have not been successful in the same domain OS environment described above when the X4445 PCI-X/PCI Quad Gigaswift ethernet card is replaced by a X4444 PCI Quad Gigaswift ethernet card.

The test results available thus far point to the fact that the X4444 card can be used a workaround solution to the BERR panic condition encountered when the X4445 card is deployed. Please bear in mind that there is no RoHS compliant version of the X4444.



Product
Sun Fire E25K Server
Sun Fire E20K Server
Sun Fire 15K Server
Sun Fire 12K Server

Internal Comments
Another workaround solution against the above described BERR panic condition is:

A binary CE driver on Solaris 8, version v1.158, derived from the fix proposed for the CR 6385683 ( 25K panics with Schizo
and XMITS cards when testing fix for IB ), has also been successfully verified as providing redress against this BERR panic
condition : i.e.,
95 7823a000 57a7e 67 1 ce (CE Ethernet Driver v1.158)
The above binary CE driver on Solaris 8 was verified on the same Solaris 8 environment used to reproduce the BERR panic
events and from all indications, the new CE binary have successfully addressed the BERR panics encountered whilst using the
original ce driver ( v1.154 .. aka 111883-34 ) .
Please note that Solaris 8 is in Sun EOL Phase 2 (Limited Support).
see Bug Id: 6456611 and 6385683 fixed in Solaris 9 112817-29 and Solaris 10 118777-08
111883, ce, berr, solaris 8, qge-x, qge, hspci, schizo, x4445, x4444, afar, starcat, amazon, 6456611, 6385683, 1.154, 1.158
Previously Published As
87034

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