Error Reporting And Handling; Fault Resilient Booting (Frb); Bsp Post Failures (Frb-2); Operating System Load Failures (Os Boot Timer) - Intel 5000 Series Datasheet

Error Reporting and Handling

5. Error Reporting and Handling
This chapter provides error message, error codes, and beep codes. For information about the
role of the BIOS in error handling and the interaction between the BIOS, platform hardware, and
server management firmware with regard to error handling see Chapter 4, System
Management.
5.1

Fault Resilient Booting (FRB)

Fault resilient booting (FRB) is feature that Intel provides to detect and handle errors during the
system boot process. FRB helps to make sure the system boots, even if one or more
processors fail during POST. There are several possible failures during the booting process that
can be detected and handled by the BIOS and BMC:
Boot-strap processor (BSP) POST failure (FRB2 watchdog timer)
Operating system load failures
Application processor (AP) failures
5.1.1

BSP POST Failures (FRB-2)

The FRB-2 process uses a watchdog timer that can be configured to reset the system if it hangs
during POST. The BIOS sets the FRB-2 timer to 6 minutes.
The BIOS disables the watchdog timer before prompting the user for a boot password / user
password, while scanning for option ROM, and when the user enters BIOS Setup. If the system
hangs during POST, before the BIOS disables the FRB-2 timer, the BMC generates an
asynchronous system reset (ASR).
The BMC retains status bits that can the BIOS can read later in POST to disable the previously
failing processor, to log the appropriate event into the system event log, and to display an
appropriate error message.
5.1.2

Operating System Load Failures (OS Boot Timer)

The BIOS provides an additional watchdog timer to provide fault resilient booting to the
operating system. This timer option is disabled by default. The timeout value and the option to
enable the timer are configured in BIOS Setup. When enabled, the BIOS enables the OS Boot
Timer in the BMC. It is the responsibility of the operating system or an application to disable this
timer once the operating system has successfully loaded.
Warning: Enabling this option without having an operating system or server management
application installed that supports this feature will cause the system to reboot when the timer
expires. Consult your application or operating system documentation to ensure this feature is
supported.
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Intel® 5000 Series Chipsets Server Board Family Datasheet
Intel order number D38960-004
Revision 1.1