Field Notice: NPE-200 Fails to Boot Cisco IOS in Certain Cisco 7204VXR and Cisco 7206VXR Chassis

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Updated:March 26, 2002

Document ID:FN14967

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Revised March 26, 2002

October 31, 2001

Products Affected

Product	Top Assembly	Printed Circuit Assembly	Comments
Product	Part Number	Part Number	Comments
NPE-200	800-2610-xx	73-2441-xx	Network Processing Engine NPE-200 (64MB default memory)
CISCO7204VXR	800-04766-08	73-3905-07	Cisco 7204VXR, 4-slot chassis, 1 AC Supply w/IP Software
CISCO7206VXR	800-04667-08	73-3223-09	Cisco 7206VXR, 6-slot chassis, 1 AC Supply w/IP Software

Problem Description

The snoop arbiter on the VXR midplane fails to recognize the NPE-200 when Port Adapters are installed in the chassis. This results in the system failing to boot Cisco IOS and only booting to a ROMMON prompt. This problem does not occur when Port Adapters are not installed in the system.

Note:?This problem does not exist on any other NPE/VXR combinations. It is only a problem with the NPE-200 on a VXR Chassis.

Background

A change was made to the snoop arbiter on the VXR midplane which causes the NPE-200 not be recognized. This results in the system not booting to Cisco IOS but instead booting to a ROMMON prompt. This problem occurs on the 7204VXR with product number 73-3905-07 and 7206VXR with product number 73-3223-09. Any version of the product number not listed will not experience this problem. The problem surfaces when Port Adapters are installed in the system. If there are no Port Adapters installed, the problem will not occur.

Problem Symptoms

When a Cisco 7204VXR or Cisco 7206VXR with the new snoop arbiter has an NPE-200 and Port Adapters installed, the system will only boot to a ROMMON prompt. An example ROMMON prompt is below:

rommon>

Workaround/Solution

To resolve this issue, a new snoop arbiter is now being used in the latest version of the chassis. This new snoop arbiter will recognize the NPE-200 when Port Adapters are installed in the chassis. The new product numbers for the Cisco 7204VXR are 800-04766-09 and 73-3905-08. The new product numbers for the Cisco 7206VXR are 800-04667-09 and 73-3223-10.

In order to resolve this issue, replace the chassis (Cisco 7204VXR or Cisco 7206VXR) through the return materials authorization (RMA) process. Please code the RMA request as ARFN (Administrative Request - Field Notice).

For More Information

If you require further assistance, or if you have any further questions regarding this field notice, please contact the Cisco Systems Technical Assistance Center (TAC) by one of the following methods:

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