Symptoms

 Affected Northstar cards will not power up and will not be detected with show-nets at OBP or the System Controller.  Card LEDs will not light up and card will be DOA.

Part

• Part No: 371-0905-03
• Part Description: Dual Gigabit Ethernet UTP

Part

• Part No: 371-0904-03
• Part Description: Dual Gigabit Ethernet MMF

Xoption

• Xoption Number: X7280A-2
• Xoption Description: Dual Gigabit Ethernet UTP (594-1755-03)

Xoption

• Xoption Number: X7281A-2
• Xoption Description: Dual Gigabit Ethernet MMF (594-1756-03)

Impact

A small number of affected dash 03 Northstar Dual Gigabit Ethernet MMF and UTP cards will not have power enabled on them and will not enumerate in the impacted platforms at power-on or reset.

Cause

Due to defective Texas Instruments voltage mux in lot 71, 72 and 73 series, back-end power (1.1 volts and 1.8 volts) is not enabled on Northstar dual port cards.  Affected cards with defective voltage mux need to rely on 3.3V aux power to initialize and be enumerated.  Some Sun platforms (listed above) do not support 3.3V aux power to the PCI-E slot given this is optional per the PCI Express specification.  Northstar Dual GBE cards with defective voltage mux used in platforms without 3.3V aux power to the PCI-E slot do not have any power source and appear as DOA.

Potentially affected dash 03 inventory in manufacturing, RSLs and Channel Distribution Partners (CDPs) was purged when the issue was discovered.  However, a small number of potentially affected Northstar Dual GBE cards escaped to the field before the issue was detected.  A test was put in place to screen for this issue in subsequent new builds of dash 03 Northstar cards.

Contributing Factors

Northstar dash 03 Dual GBE cards shipped before May 25, 2007 with TI voltage mux in lot series 71, 72 and 73 will not power up on platforms that do not have 3.3V auxiliary power enabled on the PCI-E slot. The affected platforms are:

  Sun Fire X4100, X4100 M2, X4200, X4200 M2, X4600, X4600 M2
  Sun Fire T2000 RoHS, Netra T2000
  Sun Fire V445
  Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000, M5000, M8000, M9000 (including External I/O Expansion Unit)

An investigation by Operations shows current field exposure to be limited to less than 200 cards.

Solution

Workaround

No workaround available.  See Resolution section below.

Resolution

Upon Failure only replace as follows:

• 371-0905-03 having TI mux in lot 71, 72 or 73 with 371-0905-03 (or above) having TI mux in lot other than 71, 72 or 73
• 371-0904-03 having TI mux in lot 71, 72 or 73 with 371-0904-03 (or above) having TI mux in lot other than 71, 72 or 73

Any dash 03 Northstar Dual GBE cards shipped on or before May 24, 2007 that have not yet been powered on can also be visually inspected for TI mux in lots 71, 72 and 73 series.  Cards with defective TI mux can be returned through the Customer Return for Credit (CRFC) process and replacements ordered via sales.

Identification of Affected Parts (how to):

Affected dash 03 Northstar Dual GBE cards have a Serial Number date code of 217 and earlier with TI mux in lot 71, 72 and 73.

Serial Number date code can be visually identified as illustrated via the below URL;

  http://sdpsweb.central.sun.com/FIN_FCO/FAB/103128/SPE/SN-DateCode.bmp

TI mux in lot 71, 72 and 73 series can be visually inspected as illustrated in the drawing linked below;

  http://sdpsweb.central.sun.com/FIN_FCO/FAB/103128/SPE/Power_MUX_lot_code.bmp

Comments:

To date, Sun has not seen any failures due to this issue reported on earlier versions of the Northstar cards on any platform.  Sun will continue monitoring field failure and return data for this issue.  If you encounter a card which exhibits similar behaviour, and is indeed a -02 or earlier, please return for analysis via CPAS.

This issue was fully evaluated and found not be meet FCO criteria due to the limited number of affected units and because at the time of publication of this FAB, there has been no reported incidents related to this issue.

For any cards that exhibit this failure signature and have...

 i. Serial Number date code 217 and earlier with TI mux lot code other than 71, 72, 73

- or -

 ii. Serial Number date code 218 and later

...please report card serial number and TI mux lot code to northstar-mux@sun.com


10-June-2008 Update:  A handful of affected dash 03 Northstar Dual GBE cards were reported on recent shipments.  These were all found to be within the serial number date code and TI mux lot code range mentioned above.  Purge P001-20520 was initiated to screen and purge potentially affected dash 03 inventory in manufacturing and Channel Distribution Partners (CDPs).

This issue was fully evaluated and found not be meet FCO criteria due to the limited number of affected units and because at the time of publication of this FAB, there had been no reported incidents related to this issue.

References

    GSAP: 3905
    WWSSP: P001-20407, P001-20500, P001-20520

Affected Products

Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 Server
Sun Fire T2000 Server
Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 Server
Sun Fire X4100 M2 Server
RoHS Sun Fire X4200 Server
Sun Fire X4600 Server
RoHS Sun Fire X4100 Server
Netra T2000 Server
Sun Fire X4600 M2 Server
Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 Server
Sun Fire X4200 M2 Server
Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 Server
Sun Fire V445 Server

For information about FAB documents, its release processes, implementation strategies and billing information, go to the following URL:

• http://tns.central.sun.com/fab

In addition to the above you may email:

• FAB-Manager_US_grp@oracle.com

Previously Published As: 103128
Internal Contributor/submitter: Nitin.Malhotra@Sun.COM
Internal Eng Responsible Engineer: James.Mott@Sun.COM, Philip.Suen@Sun.COM
Internal Services Knowledge Engineer: Joe.Davis@Sun.COM
Internal Eng Business Unit Group: SSG NSN (Netra Systems and Networking)

Internal Kasp FAB Legacy ID: 103128

Internal Sun Alert & FAB Admin Info
   24-Oct-2007: Original Admin Info: WF - rcvd submission, completed draft & sent to Ext Rvw.
   25-Oct-2007: Minor changes made to draft based on feedback from the sponsor.
   29-Oc-2007: Sent to Publish.
   17-Mar-2008: Added Lot 72 as affected per request from Contributor and Resp Eng.
   10-Jun-2008: Modified Root Cause, Identification and Comments sections per Contributor request.

Product_uuid
2eb6b8a2-ce94-11db-9135-080020a9ed93|Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 Server
41b7bc41-2581-11da-99bc-080020a9ed93|Sun Fire T2000 Server
51e8feab-ce93-11db-9135-080020a9ed93|Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 Server
5b03d0ed-216d-11db-a023-080020a9ed93|Sun Fire X4100 M2 Server
6da9d89d-ae38-11da-857a-080020a9ed93|RoHS Sun Fire X4200 Server
72cdbb85-7cd3-11da-8990-080020a9ed93|Sun Fire X4600 Server
72ebd254-12cb-11db-afaa-080020a9ed93|RoHS Sun Fire X4100 Server
7ba6ed6a-ec35-11da-ac3d-080020a9ed93|Netra T2000 Server
81a79a45-2170-11db-a023-080020a9ed93|Sun Fire X4600 M2 Server
ba987151-d0cc-11db-9135-080020a9ed93|Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 Server
c15f7881-216e-11db-a023-080020a9ed93|Sun Fire X4200 M2 Server
d468375a-d0d6-11db-9135-080020a9ed93|Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 Server
eb738cf6-d4ad-11da-a742-080020a9ed93|Sun Fire V445 Server

This solution has no attachment