IBM xSeries 335 - Unknown BIOS Message 00151720 1

[martbull]

Does any one know the meaning of the following BIOS Message that is intermittently being recorded in the servers error log?
BIOS MESSAGE: 00151720
The server does intermittently crash in Win2000 and I am trying to determine if the above message could give me a clue as to the cause.

Many Thanks
Martin Bull

 

[catorze]

If you go into F2 durign POST, you should see a human-readable message in the System Error Log. Since there are multiple machine types for the x335, please clarify which one you have and what version of BIOS you are running. If you are not at the current version, take a look at the README for the current version to see if it addresses the issue you are having.

 

[martbull]

The x335 server is a type 867611X and the BIOS version is v1.06. I sent an engineer to site yesterday with some spares and he did notice that when Windows 2000 crashed the Light Path Diagnostics displayed a NMI error. We decided to change the mainboard (we had already replaced the cpu's and memory)and so far the server has stayed up. It would crash within half a day when the server was heavily loaded so I am feeling quite confident the mainboard was at fault. Time will tell!
Thanks for your input.

 

[catorze]

Wow! Replacing the planar is a little drastic. The current version of BIOS for the 8676-11X is v1.12, and it is a "critical" update. It contains tons of fixes since v1.06. Before you trash the old planar, consider updating the BIOS on it, and since this is a critical update, you should also update the BIOS on any others you have running. You should also consider updating the ISMP firmware to the current version in the same maintenance window that you update the BIOS. You can get the current version of BIOS and ISMP firmware from:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/s...artnumberind=0&subcategoryind=0&validate=true

 

[martbull]

Yes, I know it was drastic but it did fixed the problem!
The BIOS revision is old but we have a mix of approx 500 x330 and x335 servers at different locations in the UK all running the same BIOS revisions and Win2000 T.S. software and they are all stable. This was the only server crashing. To update all these servers would be a major undertaking. I will though check the fixes of the BIOS updates and if there are critical fixes that may improve the operation / performance of these servers then we will certainly look into upgrading them.
Thanks for your help