This article has been updated here.
This one is a little dated but I wanted to share in case you are seeing this problem in the field. Back in November IBM released version 1.07 BIOS for the HS21 Blades. With certain types of processors, you would see a 199 (Processor Mismatch) error on the next boot if two processors were installed in the machine. This would happen even if the stepping levels were matched. I brought this to IBM’s attention and BIOS 1.07b was released on Dec 21, 2007.
This BIOS fixes the problem but we have found an instance where loading Redhat Workstation 4, Update 3 (SeverProven OS by the way) will cause a kernel panic during installation if the stepping levels of the OS are mismatched and the highest stepping level is in CPU slot 0. I don’t know if other versions of Red Hat are affected. The work around for now is to swap the lowest stepping level into slot 0 and reinstall the OS. It has been years since we’ve had to worry about stepping levels so hopefully IBM is working on a fix. I spoke to support a few days ago and they were passing this along to the BIOS team. I’ll post here with updates.
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