Lukas Beeler's IT Blog

What Microsoft has for EventIDs, IBM has SRCs (System Reference Code). While Microsoft usually offers some text to go with their EventIDs, IBM does very little in the operating system itself to explain the SRC itself.

If the system doesn’t even boot, you’re stuck with a Dot Matrix Display, which shows you a number. While there are resources to look up causes for EventIDs like EventID.Net, it’s a bit more convoluted to find appropriate information for IBMs SRC codes.

In newer System i5 hardware, there are two infocenters you have to consult in order to find out what your SRC means. This is the i5/OS Infocenter V5R4 and also the Hardware Infocenter. Both these websites use language negotation with your browser, so it makes sense to configure your web browser to only show the english pages, because the translation made by IBM is abysmal.

There are two primary links for a list of SRC codes:

Hardware SRC list
i5/OS SRC list

Another problem with looking up SRCs is that they are split values. Under certain circumstances, the first 4 numbers indicate the adapter, and the last 4 numbers indicate the error code itself. This makes it very hard to find sensible information on the internet.

The Hardware SRC list is the one you probably need more often, as i5/OS rarely has such fatal problems to be unable to display the information on the screen.

The SRCs you will see most often usually start with a letter:

x is usually a number.

• Axxx – I always remember this as the “Action” SRC. It usually means that a easily fixable error occured (e.G. unable to find the console).
• Bxxx – “Broblem” SRC. B usually indicated a fatal failure of a hardware part.
• Cxxx – Startup SRC. Seen while the system starts up.
• Dxxx – Shutdown SRC. Seen while the system shuts down or restarts.

The second part of the SRC usually also has a special meaning. Usual codes during system start say “C200″, “C600″, “C900″.

x is usually a letter, and nn can be a %, but is usually 00.

• x1nn – Service processor
• x2nn – Service processor
• x3nn – Service processor/Firmware
• x6nn – LIC IPL
• x9nn – i5/OS IPL

Usually when you’ve reached C600 during startup, the machine will start for sure, and there are no inherent hardware problems. There are some common SRC codes like C6004301 (Applying LIC PTFs) which can take a very long time, on older systems even multiple hours.