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Chapter 6. Diagnostics and System Management Services
One of the most important features provided by the PCI-based RS/6000
workstations and servers is support of the AIX diagnostics programs.
Workstations, and especially servers, should by their nature, provide
enhanced reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features. Access to
AIX diagnostics, stand-alone and on-line, helps provide these features.
In addition to providing diagnostic support for new PCI devices available for
the PCI-based RS/6000 systems, a major change had to be made to the
firmware. An extra function had to be added to the firmware to allow a logical
representation of the keyswitch that would allow the system to either boot in
normal or service mode. The Models 150 and 260 have an electronic
keyswitch function (see 8.1, “Electronic Key-Switch Function” on page 215)
and the system can either be booted in Normal or Service mode by pressing
a function key during the firmware POST stage. Additionally, support was
added to enable the system to load diagnostics from a CD-ROM.
Two methods of running diagnostics are supported on the PCI-based
RS/6000 systems:
• Stand-Alone Diagnostics
• On-line Diagnostics
Both of these methods are described in this chapter.

6.1 Diagnostics Operating Considerations

The following items identify some issues to consider before using the
diagnostics programs.
• Device Diagnostics
If diagnostics support is not installed on your system and you install this
option, device support for devices physically installed in your machine will
not be automatically installed. Diagnostics support is, however,
automatically installed when you install from an AIX Version 4 CD-ROM
(check with the lslpp -L command if bos.diag.* and bos.rte.diag filesets
are already installed on your system since they are required). The On-line
Diagnostics test list will display entries for all the devices in your system
that have diagnostic support.