BCM400 - BFT vs HD failure 2

[countrytime]

BCM400 3.7, telephony services working ok, no voice mail, no data from the serial port, no packets from the Ethernet ports, voice mail inactive, no way to communicate with the box. Short of hardware replacement, can any of you tell me how to tell if this is caused by a bad BFT or by a bad HD?

 

[SupportDude]

Symptoms match up to BFT issue.
What is the part number on the product label.

Should be NT7B10AAxx.

-SD-

http://www.mysupportguy.net

 

[gberger]

Pull out the bft and look for green capacitors, they probably leak and are bulged.If they are blue you should look for the HD. Remove the front cover from the bcm, attach a monitor and power back on. You'll see hard drive failure messages if the HD is dying.

 

[countrytime]

Part # is NT7B10AADH but the caps are blue, so the BFT has already been replaced. I'll try the monitor - I really didn't even realize you could attach one to the BCM.

 

[SupportDude]

Yep.
You have to pull the faceplate off the BFT to expose the monitor port.
The part number was affected by the BFT issue
It's most likely the HDD since the BFT has been replaced and is good.

-SD-

http://www.mysupportguy.net

 

[countrytime]

Thanks for the help. The HDD had over 150 bad sectors and the system message now prompts me to insert the NT CDROM to attempt file recovery. Time for a new HDD, I guess.

 

[SupportDude]

LOL ...
Definitely time for a new HDD!

-SD-

http://www.mysupportguy.net

 

[MagnaRGP]

I usually require all my techs who replace a BFT to do a full Telephony and Voice Apps backup as soon as the system is back in service and then reimage the drive and restore the system.

The caps issue affects the drive as well. Often, if the caps issue has been ongoing for a while before the BFT gets swapped, there will be coruption on the drive and you can bet on an HD issue within months.

My $.02 for what it's worth.

 

[TLDuk]

Agreed i have had two BFT cause HD problems

 

[SupportDude]

What I find affects the drive is the customer pulling the plug over and over again to reboot the BCM.
The first time they call in for service, the tech will reboot and resolve the problem.
Thing is ... customer doesn't know how to do a reboot, so now everytime the VM dies, instead of paying for a service call, they just pull the plug to reboot and restore VM.
Eventually the caps become completely defective and this stops working and now they've mucked up the HDD on top of it all.
Two-fold root cause.
1) Techs that aren't aware of the BFT issue and symptoms.
2) Customers improperly rebooting the BCM.

On the flip side ...
I did have one BFT that had caps leaking so badly they destroyed the MSC, but the HDD was fine.

-SD-

http://www.mysupportguy.net