Standalone Diagnostic Operation
Use standalone diagnostics to test the system when the online diagnostics are not
installed and as a method of testing the disk drives that cannot be tested by the online
diagnostics.
Note: No error log analysis is done by the standalone diagnostics. The CD-ROM drive
and the SCSI controller that controls it cannot be tested by the standalone
diagnostics. Standalone diagnostics:
vAre resident on CD-ROM or a Network Installation Management (NIM) server
vProvide a method to test the system when the online diagnostics are not
installed or cannot be loaded from the disk drive
vAllow testing of the disk drives and other resources that cannot be tested by
the online diagnostics
vDo not have access to the AIX configuration data
vDo not have access to the AIX error log
vDo not allow for running of error log analysis
Performing Slow Boot
Tofully analyze all of the available information, perform the following steps before doing
a hardware repair or replacement:
1. Record the 8-character error code (and location code if present) in the operator
panel or that was reported by the customer.
2. Do a slow-mode boot in service mode. This boot can be specified using the System
Power Control Menu on the service processor main menu. (A fast-mode boot skips
much of the built-in diagnostic testing.) A slow-mode boot may yield a new
8-character error code on the operator panel and new errors in the service
processor error log. If a new error code is reported, use this code to continue
problem analysis.
Partitioned System Considerations for Standalone Diagnostics
Torun standalone diagnostics on a full system partition, you must reboot the entire
system. However, for a partition in a partitioned system, you can boot standalone
diagnostics either in a given partition or on the entire system (which is the same
procedure as a full system partition). For a partitioned system, before running
standalone diagnostics on a given partition, the user must move the device from the
existing location where standalone diagnostics is booted (the CD-ROM drive or the
network adapter connected to the NIM server, in the case of NIM boot of standalone
diagnostics), to the partition that will run standalone diagnostics. Devices on a
partitioned system are moved on an I/O-slot basis.
If the CD-ROM drive is moved from one partition to another, all SCSI devices on the
same SCSI adapter card to which the CD-ROM drive is attached must be moved to the
same partition. It is recommended that you attach few SCSI devices to the same SCSI
controller card to prevent moving them, along with the CD-ROM drive, between
88 Eserver pSeries 690 User’s Guide