Field Notice: FN64228 - ASA 5506, ASA 5506H, ASA 5508, and ASA 5516 Might Fail After 18 Months or Longer Due to Clock Signal Component Failure - Replace on Failure

The Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) 5506, ASA 5506H, ASA 5508, and ASA 5516 might fail after 18 months or longer in operation due to a clock signal component failure.

A clock signal component manufactured by one supplier, and included in some Cisco products, has been seen to degrade over time in some units.

Although the Cisco products with these components are currently performing normally, we expect product failures to increase over the years, beginning after the unit has been in operation for approximately 18 months.

Once the component has failed, the system will stop functioning, will not boot, and is not recoverable.

Note: These clock signal components are used by other companies and are included in a number of Cisco products.

The security appliances no longer function and, subsequently, the system fails to boot.

In addition, the LED status indicators on the security appliance illuminate as follows:

• Power LED is green
• Status LED is amber and blinking

Customers with affected products (see the How to Identify Affected Products section) should contact the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) to request a replacement unit. A valid Cisco support contract is required to open a TAC Service Request.

The license activation key is tied to the ASA chassis serial number. Contact the Cisco Licensing Team in order to have your current license transferred to the replacement chassis serial number. The Cisco Licensing Team will ask for the Product Authorization Key reference number and current serial number. Additional information in regards to ASA licensing can be referenced in the Cisco ASA Series General Operations CLI Configuration Guide, 9.6.

In order to verify if your product is affected by this issue, examine the Version ID (VID) number and/or chassis serial number for the security appliance.

Any appliances with a VID number equal to or later than the 'Fixed VID' are not affected and do not need to be replaced.

Any appliances with a VID number equal to or earlier than the 'Possibly Affected VID' are possibly affected.

The appliance VID and chassis serial number can be obtained from the CLI or through visual inspection of the security appliance. For units that have already failed due to this issue, a visual inspection of the security appliance or review of the Sales Order documentation is required.

CLI

Enter the show inventory command in order to obtain the VID and chassis serial number of the appliance:

asa> show inventory

Name: "Chassis", DESCR: "ASA 5508-X with FirePOWER services, 8GE, AC, DES"

PID: ASA5508 , VID: V01 , SN: JMX1234ABCD

Note: The show version command should not be used in order to avoid Cisco bug ID CSCtz56314 (ASA5500-X Chassis Serial Number Not Visible from CLI).

Visual Inspection of the ASA Security Appliance

The Version ID (VID) and serial number information is located on the bottom surface of the appliance as highlighted in this image.