Sun[TM] Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800/E2900/E4900/E6900/V1280 and Netra[TM] 1280/1290 Server: I/O Board (IB) power supply failures.

Last updated on FEBRUARY 02, 2017

Applies to:

Symptoms

Symptoms
This document pertains to I/O Board (IB) power failures in Sun Fire[TM] servers.

These boards can be fail with scenarios similar to the following (note that the voltages reported will differ from case to case, and so to the IB location):

Main-SC:SC> poweron ib9
Dec 07 12:13:20 Main-SC Platform.SC: Attempt to power up /N0/IB9 failed: /N0/IB9 1.5V DC failed, observed: 0.0 volts /N0/IB9 3.3V DC failed, observed: 0.58 volts /N0/IB9: powered on

showenvironment may report ERROR LOW for the particular device and should report how low the voltage is as well, for example look at IB9 below:

sc% showenvironment -v


Slot    Device     Sensor       Min    LoWarn Value  HiWarn Max    Units     Age     Status
------- ---------- ------------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ --------- ------- ------


   ***** Results truncated for this example *****


/N0/IB7 Board 0    1.5 VDC 0    1.35   1.42   1.49   1.57   1.65   Volts DC  8 sec   OK
/N0/IB7 Board 0    3.3 VDC 0    2.97   3.13   3.31   3.46   3.63   Volts DC  8 sec   OK


   ***** Results truncated for this example *****


/N0/IB9 Board 0    1.5 VDC 0    1.35   1.42   0.0    1.57   1.65   Volts DC  8 sec   *** ERROR LOW ***
/N0/IB9 Board 0    3.3 VDC 0    2.97   3.13   0.58   3.46   3.63   Volts DC  8 sec  *** ERROR LOW ***

Errors seen in operation resulting in a domain outage may be like this:

Mar 09 14:12:30 Sunfire Platform.SC: [ID 920508 local0.notice] CPCI I/O Board (F3800) at /N0/IB8 Device poll caused: sun.serengeti.FailedHwException: (SdcAsic)Asic.getTemp: <strong>Path broken between CBH and SDC</strong>: IB8.sdc.10 (13000010) 

or also like this:

Mar 09 14:12:31 Sunfire Platform.SC: [ID 818977 local0.notice] /N0/IB8, sensor status, outside acceptable limits (7,1,0x503080d00050000)

or perhaps like this:

Mar 18 20:27:45 Sunfire Platform.SC: Device voltage problem: /N0/IB8 abnormal state for device: Board 0 1.5 VDC 0 Value: 0.0 Volts DC JtagController.tapWait: sun.serengeti.CommException: Path broken between CBH and SDC: IB8.sdc.b0 (130000b0)

Lastly, an error of this type in POST may appear as follows:

Hardware error occurred during Interconnect testing: Sun.serengeti.HpuFailedException: RepeaterHpu.verifyInterConnect: Slot 8: sun.serengeti.FailedHwException: Asic.getDeviceID: /partition0/domain0/IB8/ar0: sun.serengeti.CommException: Path broken between CBH and SDC: IB8.ar.0 (13080000): PCI I/O Board at /N0/IB8
Mar 18 20:29:01 Sunfire Domain-A.SC: Excluded unusable, unlicensed, failed or disabled board: /N0/IB8

NOTEs:

• The symptoms described above are not an exhaustive list of messaging related to this issue. It is suspected that the real list of possible errors associated to this issue is very long, but the common symptom seems to be the voltage and power related errors shown above (and especially Path broken between CBH and SDC alerts). 
• This document also applies to Sun Fire[TM] v1280, E2900, and Netra 1280, 1290 systems but are not specifically listed due to the fact that they utilize IB_SSC boards (not IBs).  If this event takes place on this server type, the IB_SSC is implicated but the System Controller (which is integrated) is not reachable to even see the errors.
• Contact Oracle Support Services if you are unsure whether this document applies to your particular situation.

Cause