Originally posted by: SystemAdmin

Hi All - we recently received a new IBM p5-505 series blade server. This came pre-installed with AIX 5.3 however we immediately had issues with booting - it took close to an hour to get to the config options. Since then we have been struggling with constant system hanging (hourglass... get bust waiting) issues - we did a basic re-installation of AIX, and on config screen for TCP/IP setup we ended up with the hourglass cursor for 3hrs. In fact we seem to get about 30minutes of actual work time for about every 4-6hrs of server waiting time - as we end up waiting ALL the time. Bootup takes in the order of 60 minutes - this cannot be normal!

This is our first AIX box, bought specifically for a new operational software package. We are a bit stumped at this point. IBM has been onsite to verify the hardware is OK - they gave it the OK so we have ruled that out. I am looking for some suggestions on how to proceed? What we can look for/try? or where I can get some good info on basic installation procedures?

Thanks

Jeff
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Originally posted by: orphy

Jeff,

When you said IBM was onsite to verify that the HW was OK. Did you mean they
ran a diag to see if anything is wrong? If IBM didn't run a complete diag from
the CD-ROM, you might want to consider that since that's really the only clean
way to hit all the HW components to see if you have a lemon or not.

As for the slow response, that doesn't sound normal but have you looked at your
network to see if the settings are OK? Are there any collisions/pks dropped/CRC
errors/etc? Try "entstat -d enX" & "netstat -in". I would also assume that you
were doing the TCP/IP config from the console and if that took an hr to get to
the screen, there's definitely something wrong and it's probably not network
related.

Since I don't know the memory requirement of your app, you might also want to
look at your paging space (lsps -a) and possibly I/O pacing settings. High I/O
usually hurts response time.

The 5.3 Installation Guide is a good start for you if you want to reinstall.
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/pseries/v5r3/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.aix.doc/doc/base/installingandmigrating.htm
Orphy! :-)
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Originally posted by: bassemir

This is definitely not normal. It sounds a little like trouble I ran into once where the system would take "forever" to boot up. At the time I was moving systems from one network to another network (for demos).

My problem was because of the way I was doing my tcpip configuration. I won't try to explain what was actually happening but to fix the problem I would rename the file /etc/netsvc.conf to something else (I am cautious in deleting files).

If you can get to a state where you can rename the file it is a simple test and might help.

Rich
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Originally posted by: HajoEhlers

The behaviour of the system does not sound good but it might work as configured.

So if possible:
1)
Login in via serial console because CDE requries more or less a correct configured network environment or do at least a text login.
2) Check that the machine does not try to NFS mount anything
3) Verify your network configuration.
3) Use at least topas to check if your system is overload - which i do not believe

hth
Hajo
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Originally posted by: BruceSpencer

I've seen similar boot problems with "older" microcode. I would check the microcode to verify it is current. If not, I'd update it to current. The microcode is available from the following URL

http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/set2/firmware/gjsn

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