Re: 520 (Power5) at V6R1 Goes to Sleep

Hi, Kirk:

I recall seeing something very similar, some number of years ago ... there was some failing hardware that was "flakey" and intermittent ... when it would start to fail, the system would go into "recovery" and the recovery routines were eating up all sorts of CPU cycles writing many many error log messages to the system log. Once the hardware stopped being flakey, the system would eventually "catch up" again.

This caused the same kinds of symptoms you are reporting, including the TwinAX console becoming unresponsive.

You might ask to have someone replace the Ethernet cables that connect the 520 to the network -- perhaps you have some flakey cables?

Also, issue DSPLOG and see if you spot hundreds or even thousands of error messages -- if so, they could point to the failing component(s).

Also, for Ethernet, I recommend the following settings:

CHGETHLIN LIND(ETHLIN) CMNRCYLMT(99 5)

and add the following auto-reply to the list of automatic replies:

ADDRPYLE SEQNBR(50) MSGID(CPA58EE) CMPDTA(*NONE) RPY(R)

(You will need to issue WRKRPYLE to find an available sequence number.)

Hope that helps,

Mark S. Waterbury

On 12/8/2010 2:21 PM, Kirk Goins wrote:

I have a client that initially reported his 520 at V6R1 was dropping off the
network for 20-40minutes and them coming back to life like nothing happened.
After some questioning we know that the system stops responding to pings on
the Ethernet ports ( both on the MB) AND even the Twinax Console stops
responding. So I don't see this as a network issue. During the problem
times, the console has a sign on screen but entering a ID and password just
results in a 'X' until everything starts working again. The system has auto
tune on, lots of memory ( I think a full 32GB, at least 16GB ) 65 diskarms.
ALL logging appears to stop, nothing in QHST or joblogs we checked. random
days and times. Nothing in WRKPRB, (SST - {PAL or Service Action Logs ). I
just left a message to check the VLOGs so I don't know about them yet.

IBM is having the client install iDoctor, but other than that they havn't
found anything yet. I 'feel' that either the box is thrashing or some very
very low level task gets in a tight loop. Anyone else seen this before?
Anthing Thoughts?

Thanks