Cisco issues blade fire warning

Vendor reveals its UCS B440 blade server carries risk of overheating

Cisco has warned that one of its UCS blade servers carries a risk of overheating and possible fire, after two recorded incidents in the US.

The networking giant published a field notice on its website about the B440 blade server, which explained that failure of a MOSFET power transistor on the server can cause that particular component to overheat and “emit a flash” which in turn could lead to circuit board failure.

In certain conditions that failure could also disrupt power flow to other blades in the chassis, Cisco warned.

In a statement, Cisco said: “As confirmed in our public field notice, there have been just two related incidents at customer sites since the Cisco UCS B440 blade server was introduced in May 2010. Cisco is proactively managing this situation in our normal way and with the best interests of our customers in mind.

“We have proactively contacted all affected customers and are discussing available options with them. This issue is specific to B440 blade servers and no other UCS solutions are involved. Less than five per cent of Cisco UCS customers have this type of blade,” the statement said.

However, Paul Sweeney, managing director of Cisco Gold partner ANS, said the problem is unlikely to affect many UK partners.

“[The B440] is a full-width blade. We have probably done more UCS implementations than anyone else and have never sold a full-width blade. All the promotional bundles Cisco has been pushing [in the UK] are half-width blades.”