Cisco Recalls UCS Blade Servers Due to Overheating

Cisco (News - Alert), in a Field Notice published on its website, wrote about a failure of a MOSFET power transistor on the blade server and has issued a recall and replacement program.

The failing MOSFET power transistor can possibly lead to a complete failure of the circuit board. Under certain conditions, that failure could also disrupt power flow to other blades in the same chassis.

“Cisco is directly contacting UCS B440 Blade Server customers and will replace UCS B440 Blade Servers currently deployed at customer sites,” the company said.

Cisco actually warned customers that something was wrong with the MOSFETs back in July, and said at that time that there was “no indication of a systemic issue with the MOSFET components, and the observed failure in the field is considered to be a random component failure.”

Cisco also notified customers back in January, saying a firmware patch did detect MOSFET failures in the B440 servers,  and that it prevented a “potential thermal event.” Despite that, a B440 still failed in the field.

The company said “There is no indication of a systemic issue with the MOSFET components, and the observed failure in the field is considered to be a random component failure.”

While users are waiting for your server replacement, the best protection from this fire hazard is to install UCS Blade Management Controller software equal to or greater than version 1.3(1w), 1.4(3L) or 2.0(1q). The software can be downloaded from Cisco.com.

UCS B440 customers should contact their account team with any questions or send an email to FN63430@cisco.com.