Field Notice: FN - 63746 - Catalyst C4500 and Catalyst 49xx Might Fail to Boot Up After a Software Upgrade or Power Cycle - Replace on Failure

Notice

THIS FIELD NOTICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS AND DOES NOT IMPLY ANY KIND OF GUARANTEE OR WARRANTY, INCLUDING THE WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY. YOUR USE OF THE INFORMATION ON THE FIELD NOTICE OR MATERIALS LINKED FROM THE FIELD NOTICE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. CISCO RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CHANGE OR UPDATE THIS FIELD NOTICE AT ANY TIME.

Revision History

Revision	Publish Date	Comments
1.0	10-Feb-15	Initial Release
10.0	12-Oct-17	Migration to new field notice system
10.1	10-Sep-18	Updated the Defect Information Section

Products Affected

Affected Product ID	Comments
ME-4924-10GE
WS-C4928-10GE
WS-C4948-10GE
WS-C4948-10GE-E
WS-C4948-10GE-S
WS-X4516-10GE/2

Defect Information

Defect ID	Headline
CSCvf34445	There were no defects filed with this field notice at the time of publication.

Problem Description

Some Catalyst 49xx fixed switches and a Catalyst 4500 modular supervisor might fail to boot up after a software upgrade or other user action where the board requires a power cycle operation.

Background

Cisco has been working with some customers on an issue related to memory components manufactured by a single supplier between 2005 and 2010. These memory components are widely used across the industry and are included in a number of Cisco products.

Although the majority of Cisco products using these components are experiencing field failure rates below expected levels, some components may fail earlier than anticipated. A handful of our customers have recently experienced a higher number of failures, leading us to change our approach to managing this issue.

While other vendors have chosen to address this issue in different ways, Cisco believes its approach is the best course of action for its customers. Despite the cost, we are demonstrating that we always make customer satisfaction a top priority. Customers can learn more about this topic at www.cisco.com/go/memory.

PLEASE NOTE: The products listed in this Field Notice have lower than expected failure rates. This assessment is based on actual usage of affected memory components, observed field failure rates and product replacements since 2012.

A degraded component will not affect the ongoing operation of a device, but will be exposed by a subsequent power cycle event. This event will result in a hard failure of the device, which cannot be recovered by a reboot or additional power cycle. For these reasons, additional caution is recommended for operational activities requiring the simultaneous power cycling of multiple devices. This issue has been observed most commonly on devices that have been in service for 24 months or more.

Problem Symptom

There is no known occurrence of failure due to the specific vendor of memory in the impacted PIDS on Catalyst 4500 and Catalyst 49xx platform. If the suspected Catalyst 4500 supervisor and 49xx fixed switch has been in operation for approximately ~24 months, the product hardware may fail to boot-up due to memory failure during a power cycle event caused by one or more of the following conditions:

• Upgrade the software
• Reload the entire product
• Reload after installation
• Online Insertion Removal/Replacement (OIR) for the modular supervisor

Note: The issue does not affect boards while the boards are in operation. The board failure may occur after one or more of the above conditions are met.

Workaround/Solution

Normal SmartNet and warranty entitlement rules remain in place and are applied by the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) if you experience a failure in one of the products listed in the Field Notice. In other circumstances, such as out of warranty or out of contract, Cisco encourages you to raise your concern directly with your Cisco account team.

Fix on Failure Replacement Guidelines: Request Return Material Authorization (RMA) product through normal service support channels.

Product or card replacement: Request RMA product through normal service support channels.

For assistance with replacement memory module: Please refer to the Memory Replacement Guidance for Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Modular Switch Supervisor for instructions on how to replace the memory modules.

PID	Action	PID Replacement	Quantity
Catalyst 4500 Supervisor
WS-X4516-10GE	Replace Supervisor Memory Module	MEMC4K-512D-SDRAM=	1
Catalyst 49xx
WS-C4948-10GE	Replace product	WS-C4948-10GE	1
WS-C4948-10GE-E	Replace product	WS-C4948-10GE-E	1
WS-C4948-10GE-S	Replace product	WS-C4948-10GE-S	1
WS-C4928-10GE	Replace product	WS-C4928-10GE	1
ME-4924-10GE	Replace product	ME-4924-10GE	1

How To Identify Affected Products

There are two methods in order to obtain the part ID (PID):

• IOS CLI Command: Use the show module command.

  In order to identify the PID of the installed supervisors and/or fixed switches, use the show module command as shown in this example. The PID can be found under the Model column.

  Example: show module on WS-C4510R (Redundant Chassis)

  4510R-switch#show mod
  
  Chassis Type : WS-C4510R 
  
  Power consumed by backplane : 40 Watts 
  
  Mod Ports                Card                      Type            Model 
  ---+-----+----------------------------------+------------------+------------- 
  
  1      6        Sup V-10GE 10GE (X2),          1000BaseX (SFP)   WS-X4516-10GE 
  2      6        Sup V-10GE 10GE (X2),          1000BaseX (SFP)   WS-X4516-10GE 
  3      6        1000BaseX (GBIC) WS-X4306-GB 
  4      6        1000BaseX (GBIC) WS-X4306-GB
  

• Physical Inspection: If CLI access is not available, look for a label on the device.

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:

• Open a service request on Cisco.com
• By email
• By telephone

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