ME5024: The Intelligent BackEnd Error Monitor (IBEEM) has discovered that continuous errors are being reported for the indicated PHY.

Hi,

To answer straight to your point questions, PHY: 30 is the bus channel that communicates between both controllers, there are 4 if I'm not mistaken. These PHYs are used as an alternate channel on both controllers. Channel 0 and 1, yes they are controller A and B. Enclosure, yes, they are chassis enclosure identification. For Type, it indicates that the error type is unspecified or not categorized within the system.

For this error/issue, you might need to check in the logs to see which controller reports more of the error. Controller A reports for Channel 1 and Controller B reports for Channel 0. If more of the reported error, the controller might have issues. If the controller has been replaced and the issue persist, there are cases where the midplane need to be replaced. 

Thanks for the reply.

Would you mind clearing up the controller/channel associations? At first you say "Channel 0 and 1, yes they are controller A and B" and then "Controller A reports for Channel 1 and Controller B reports for Channel 0".

Also, since you seem pretty confident about there being 4 bus channels, am I correct to assume they are 00, 10, 20, 30? Just curious.

Hello again. Forgot to mention . . . The messages appear evenly between the controllers (~500 ea) looking as far back as we can in the event history. Do you think this would indicate a midplane issue? The controllers communicate on those bus channels via the midplane I presume.

I'm guessing that's not a customer replaceable unit.

Hello,

I haven't seen it mentioned yet; Are you able to confirm you are on the latest firmware:

ME5.1.2.1.1, A09

https://www.dell.com/support/product-details/en-us/product/powervault-me5024/drivers

No. We are on ME5.1.2.1.0

Hello,

I'm not that confident. I can only recall a slide about it, quite few years ago when ME launched. 

The controller communicate via SAS physical links, which consist of 4 lanes/wires, which are called PHY in ME logs. Even the SAS connection to drives are considered PHY. I can't recall what are SAS PHY ID for controller SAS channel. ME logs would show though. I think it's 28, 29, 30, 31. 

Do you think this would indicate a midplane issue?

Most likely but may need the technical support to check on the ME storage logs. If ~500ea, and there is no pointing to 1 controller specifically, then the suspect is the midplane. Yes, is not a customer replaceable unit.

I'm not that confident. I can only recall a slide about it, quite few years ago when ME launched. 

I have seen multiple times now in the CLI guide that the numeric equivalents for controller values are: 

• 0: B
• 1: A

I think that clears that up for the both of us 😁.

The controller communicate via SAS physical links, which consist of 4 lanes/wires, which are called PHY in ME logs. Even the SAS connection to drives are considered PHY. I can't recall what are SAS PHY ID for controller SAS channel. ME logs would show though. I think it's 28, 29, 30, 31. 

I have a better grasp of this now after piecing together your comments and various documentation. The CLI Reference guide reveals that "physical channels" are known as "PHY lanes". Pretty much any piece of hardware connected to the midplane has a corresponding PHY is what I gather. My attempts to get a list of all the PHY's and what they are hasn't been very fruitful though. 

Hello,

You can call in 1-800-945-3355 US/Canada and provide the ME5024 service tag to set up a case and work with an engineer.

You may bring up the question about swapping drives to a replacement system.

Could be something like this:

Get a full backup. Power down the system. Swap the controllers and disk drives over to the replacement system and power up.

If you have existing warranty I don't know if that will transfer over as they would be different service tags.