BCM 400 keeps rebooting 1

[acewarlock]

I have a BCM 400 that goes to over 100% CPU and then reboots it's self. Telephony keeps working except Vmail and I can't communicate with the BCM until it reboots again. I just had the BTF replaced.

 

[stilo]

sounds like the hard drives on its last legs

 

[acewarlock]

It Was the (BFT), Nortel overnited a replace Tray.

 

[janchundia]

what's BTF ????

 

[acewarlock]

(BFT) Base Function Tray ie: Motherboard

 

[beckman68]

How did you find that it was going up to 100% CPU? Random check or what log did you check. I am having a similar problem on my 400 3.6.

 

[biv343]

The BCM Monitor application will give you CPU and memory stats.

 

[MagnaRGP]

I had a unit do this too. The OS was corrupting itself.

Try a chkdsf /f on the C,D,E,F drives and reboot. No guarantees, but seems like nothing lost in your case.

 

[acewarlock]

Nortel has had a problem with leaking capisitors on the motherboards in the BCM 1000, 400 and the 200. the 200 and 40-0 are covered until 12/2006.

 

[penroy]

I have the same problem of rebooting.The the base funtion tray was replace and it is still happening.does anyone have any ideas.

 

[acewarlock]

Replace the MCS card, I just had to replace both the BFT and the MCS to get it to work.

 

[penroy]

The part that are sugesting to be replace is it the MCS or the MSC Card.
Could kindly define.

 

[biv343]

MSC - media services card. Check the card and see if there is a small black wire jumper on the top of the card, about a third of the way down the card. If not, it's eligible for replacement.

 

[acewarlock]

Sorry Typo

Replace the MSC card, I just had to replace both the BFT and the MCS to get it to work.

 

[hawkflorida]

I thought one way to quickly identify a board with a potiential problem with the leaking electrolytic CAPs was the color. If they were green, then it was possibly an issue. Has anyone else heard of that or is it incorrect???

I also connect a monitor to the system to see how the boot goes as an additional diagnostic tool for hard drive failures.

One thing about an open site is mis-information. I don't wish to contribute to any incorrect information that gets piled onto a problem. My CAP color information is not confirmed.

Consulting -
"If You're Not A Part Of The Solution, There's Good Money To Be Made In Prolonging The Problem."

 

[Bucky101]

There is a Patch that addresses the BCM randomly rebooting problem. On the nortel site run a search for BCM software and it is called the BCM Core update. It will update to 3.7.2 i think and requires a reboot. I have never had a rebooting problem but in this patches description it has listed a Fix for BCM randomly rebooting

 

[biv343]

Green caps are indeed the "suspect" capacitors. The updated trays have blue caps.

 

[acewarlock]

You can get the Scan Utility on Mrmarshell's web site to test for the bad Motherboard.

 

[talan1268]

We had the same problem here. Found out there were two PCs hooked up the PowerDSyne switches that were sending packets to the DHCP Server trying to get access to the network. If your system is not tied to the network, like ours, every time it reboots, the PCs connect first and then send the CPU to 100%. We had to remove the two PCs and then reboot the BCM. Haven't gone above 24% unless someone pages over the phones, or when I connect to check the usage.

 

[tech2233]

Wondering when Nortel will beging producing a more reliable product. Any word on the BCM 600 ? These system trays and failed hard drives on the BCM 200 and 400 are really frustrating.

I’m the unlucky technician that has to stand in front of many frustrated customers who wonder why their product doesn’t work. Some customers wonder why their call center data is so off. I upgrade, patch, upgrade, and patch and the call center software still doesn’t work reliably. Other customers wonder why a major manufacturer like Nortel needs to release some 70 or more patches for release 3.6 / 3.7. These aren’t upgrades – they’re patches. What’s wrong with the product in the first place when it needs so many patches. What’s wrong with a product when you take it out of the box new and it takes 7 hours to patch well enough to take to a customer site. And to top it off it’s built on Microsoft software which has no shortage of its own security bulletins and patches.

Some customers wonder why system trays, capacitors, MSC cards, hard drives and power supplies fail with such frequency. Why have there been so many hardware recalls on the BCM trays and motherboards ?

I admire the group of senior technicians that I see dealing with BCM issues including the ones that post to this newsgroup. We are all at the front of the line with this – and I ask you – when will this end ? In my 20 years installing phone systems I have never experienced a product quite like this – the BCM is even worse than the old TIE system from the late 80’s.

Does anyone out there agree ?