Sun Fire X4170 M2 and X4270 M2 Servers Product Notes

Resetting the System During POST Might Generate Spurious DIMM Faults

Bug ID 15777163

If you reset the system during early POST (before video initialization), it might cause the system to log spurious uncorrectable error (DIMM) faults. These can cause BIOS to disable the faulted DIMMs, which are then unavailable to the operating system.

The following display shows this in the system event log. See lines 5 and b.

5 | 08/09/2011 | 16:40:33 | System Boot Initiated | Initiated by warm reset | Asserted 
6 | 08/09/2011 | 16:40:33 | System Boot Initiated | System Restart | Asserted 
7 | 08/09/2011 | 16:40:33 | System Firmware Progress | Memory initialization | Asserted 
8 | 08/09/2011 | 16:40:34 | System Firmware Progress | Primary CPU initialization | Asserted 
9 | 08/09/2011 | 16:41:42 | System Firmware Progress | Management controller initialization | Asserted 
a | 08/09/2011 | 16:41:42 | System Firmware Progress | Secondary CPU Initialization | Asserted 
b | 08/09/2011 | 16:41:42 | Memory | Uncorrectable Error | Asserted | OEM Data-2 0x00 OEM Data-3 0x04 
c | 08/09/2011 | 16:41:54 | System Firmware Progress | Video initialization | Asserted 
d | 08/09/2011 | 16:42:00 | System Firmware Progress | Keyboard controller initialization | Asserted 
e | 08/09/2011 | 16:42:12 | System Firmware Progress | Option ROM initialization | Asserted 
f | 08/09/2011 | 16:42:15 | System Firmware Progress | Option ROM initialization | Asserted 
10 | 08/09/2011 | 16:42:18 | System Firmware Progress | Option ROM initialization | Asserted 
11 | 08/09/2011 | 16:42:22 | System Firmware Progress | Option ROM initialization | Asserted 
12 | 08/09/2011 | 16:42:27 | System Firmware Progress | System boot initiated | Asserted 

  

Affected Hardware:

• Sun Fire X4170 M2 Server

• Sun Fire X4270 M2 Server

Workaround:

Do not use the Oracle ILOM CLI or GUI to reset the server during POST until after you see output on the video display.

If the faults do occur:

1. Clear the faults using the Oracle ILOM command-line interface (CLI) command:

   set /SYS/MB/Px/Dy/ clear_fault_action=true

   Where Px/Dy identifies the DIMM the fault was reported against.

2. Power cycle the system.