Field Notice: FN64251 - Nexus 9000 Series N9K-C9504-FM-E/N9K-C9508-FM-E/N9K-X9732C-EX Might Fail After 18 Months or Longer Due to Clock Signal Component Failure - Replace on Failure

The Cisco Nexus 9000 Series products that are listed in the Products Affected section 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.

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

Many Cisco Nexus 9000 Series FMs and line cards have similar part numbers. However, only the products that are listed in the Products Affected section of this field notice, as well as these spare Product IDs (PIDs), are impacted by the issue:

Fabric Modules

* N9K-C9504-FM-E=

* N9K-C9508-FM-E=

Line Card

* N9K-X9732C-EX=

All other PIDs, such as N9K-C9504-FM, N9K-C9504-FM-R, N9K-C9504-FM2, N9K-C9508-FM, N9K-C9508-FM-R, and N9K-C9508-FM2, are not affected.

When this clock failure issue occurs, the Fabric Modules (FMs) and Line Card (LC) continue to operate normally until a reboot or power cycle event occurs. The switch boots up as expected, but the affected module does not boot up at all and the module will not be in the switch inventory.

Note: No error messages are generated by the software because the module is not recognized.

In this case, the switch continues to route traffic, but in a reduced capacity based on the ratio of failed to non-failed FMs. For example, one FM failure out of four FMs results in 75% forwarding capacity between line cards.

Additionally, when the clock failure issue occurs on the N9K-X9732C-EX line card, it will continue to function until a reboot occurs. After reboot, the module does not boot up at all, all of the ports lose functionality, and the module is not present in the switch inventory.

Note: No error messages are generated by the software because the module is not recognized.

Customers with affected products (see the How To Identify Affected Products section) should contact the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) to get a replacement unit.

Use these URL links in order to reach the failed component replacement instructions for your specific system:

• Replace an N9K-C9508-FM-E
• Replace an N9K-X9732C-EX in an N9K-C9508 system
• Replace an N9K-C9504-FM-E
• Replace an N9K-X9732C-EX in an N9K-C9504 system

The Fabric Module(s) and/or the Line Card are hot swappable and can be replaced without powering down the switch. See the instructions as noted in the user manual URL links above.

It is important to note that when a Fabric Module is replaced, the fan is removed to gain access, and the switch will not have the same cooling capacity during a hot swap. The switch uses three fan trays, but it can operate with two fan trays while you replace one or remove one to replace one of the fabric modules behind the fan tray.

Powering off the switch is also an acceptable approach to replacement of these modules if there are any customer concerns about cooling the switch during fabric module replacement.

Any new products that were shipped after 12/5/2016 are not impacted.

In order to verify if your product is affected by this issue, examine the Version ID (VID) number.

Any appliances with a VID number equal to or earlier than the 'Possibly Affected VID' are possibly affected. Enter the show inventory command into the CLI in order to obtain the VID of the working module. The failed module will not be recognized.

All products (Fabric modules and line card) in this field notice that are affected are eligible for replacement on July 1, 2017.

Note: Some of the non-affected products also have a VID of V01.

CLI

Enter the show inventory command into the CLI in order to obtain the VID of the affected product. Here is a command output example for the 8-slot chassis:

switch# show inventory

NAME: "Chassis", DESCR: "Nexus9000 C9508 (8 Slot) Chassis"
PID: N9K-C9508 , VID: V02 , SN: ABC1234DEFG


NAME: "Slot 2", DESCR: "32x100G Ethernet Module"
PID: N9K-X9732C-EX , VID: V01 , SN: ABC1234DEFG


NAME: "Slot 21", DESCR: "8-slot Fabric Module"
PID: N9K-C9508-FM-E , VID: V01 , SN: ABC123456D7


NAME: "Slot 22", DESCR: "8-slot Fabric Module"
PID: N9K-C9508-FM-E , VID: V01 , SN: ABC123456D7


NAME: "Slot 23", DESCR: "8-slot Fabric Module"
PID: N9K-C9508-FM-E , VID: V01 , SN: ABC123456D7

In addition to the VID numbers that are obtained via the show inventory command output, customers can also determine the impact of this issue based on the ship date:

Visual Inspection

If the device is unreachable, you can visually inspect the Version ID label in order to obtain the VID numbers. This label is located on the bottom of the tray for all three of the products.

Here is the Version ID label on the 9504 FM:

Here is the Version ID label on the 9508 FM:

Here is the Version ID label on the N9K-X9732C-EX line card: