Technical Advisory

This Technical Advisory describes an issue which may or may not affect the customer’s product

Intel Technical Advisory TA-1041-1

5200 NE Elam Young Parkway

Hillsboro, OR 97124

November 12, 2013

When a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) reset occurs due to

an IPMI cold reset command or a firmware update, the BMC firmware

may not restart properly

Products Affected

Intel

Server Boards S2600xx product family

Intel

Server System R1000xx product family

Intel

Server System R2000xx product family

Intel

Server System P4000xx product family

Description

Unexpected behavior has been observed when heavy traffic is present on any of the NIC ports available to the

Baseboard Management Controller (BMC), coincident with a BMC reset resulting from either an IPMI cold reset

command, or the reset that occurs after a BMC firmware update. Under these conditions the BMC firmware may not

restart properly.

The BMC will not respond to most IPMI commands after it has entered this state. An additional failure symptom is that

the Chassis ID (Blue LED on baseboard and Front Panel) will continue to blink.

This issue applies to all products listed in the Products Affected section above.

Root Cause

BMC firmware prior to BMC 1.19.5018 did not disable the network services before initiating the reset. Consequently,

network traffic continued to be buffered to memory. This same area of memory is used for different purposes after the

reboot. It is possible that the buffered network traffic would lead to a memory checksum error to be detected by the

BMC firmware. This checksum error would prevent the BMC from booting its operating system and instead go into

firmware update transfer mode.

Corrective Action / Resolution

This issue has been fixed in BMC 1.19.5018 and later.

Workarounds

Disconnecting any NIC ports available to the BMC before performing firmware updates or an IPMI cold reset command

will ensure that this issue will not occur. If the issue occurs, an AC power cycle of the system is required to clear it.

Please contact your Intel Sales Representative if you require more specific information about this issue.

INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH INTEL PRODUCTS. NO LICENSE, EXPRESS OR

IMPLIED, BY ESTOPPEL OR OTHERWISE, TO ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IS GRANTED BY THIS DOCUMENT.

EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN INTEL'S TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SALE FOR SUCH PRODUCTS, INTEL ASSUMES NO

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This Technical Advisory describes an issue which may or may not affect the customer’s product Intel Technical Advisory TA-1041-1 5200 NE Elam Young Parkway Hillsboro, OR 97124 November 12, 2013 When a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) reset occurs due to an IPMI cold reset command or a firmware update, the BMC firmware may not restart properly Products Affected Intel® Server Boards S2600xx product family Intel® Server System R1000xx product family Intel® Server System R2000xx product family Intel® S
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