Dell PowerEdge VRTx CMC not responding

Question

Our VRTx Chassis won't load the CMC right from startup.After about 5 minutes it times out and says 'CMC not responding' on the little LCD screen.Once it gets to the not responding point, Pushing the power button on the chassis or any of the blade servers inside does nothing (naturally).When consulting the VRTx diagnostics document (en.community.dell.com/.../VRTX-Diagnostics_5B00_1_5D00_.pdf) I found that 'When CMC is active and running, and there are noproblems, the bottom LED is blue.' Which they are.I have scoured the internet with no luck on this issue. Since we bought this off eBay a while ago it doesn't have any support. Dell said it was a refurbished unit and they can't help me. So I'm here posting this!Another thing I tried from the troubleshooting doc was to recover the firmware. When connecting to the com port in the back of the vrtx chassis, It doesn't seem to want to connect to putty at all. I may have not done that part correctly but as it is, the chassis doesn't have an IP address so the com port seems to be the only way to get in if that was possible.Help is greatly appreciated at this point. Thanks in advance! As you can see here (below), it would appear that the CMC is working because its self test is coming back OK... It does this (below)  for 5-10 minutes and that (above^).

Tempmbennett · Answer

Same exact issue... 5 days after warranty expired and apparently its a very hard part to find.

SYSnotDEV · Answer

Have you tried to do a full power cycle (shutdown chassis and removal of the power plugs) of the chassis while connected to the serial (or comm) port?  You may get output during the initial CMC initialization that will help show the issue. Also have you tried bringing the CMC card up in the other slot, after removing power?

Dell-DylanJ · Answer

Hello,

Hopefully, dbz and Temp got their VRTX issues resolved, but I'll post here for anyone that might be searching the forum for VRTX issues. What is generally a good troubleshooting step is to fail the CMC over to the other controller, and then back. If that doesn't resolve it, a hard reset may, and there is also the option to reseat the CMC card itself. If one does end up needing replacement, the part number is 34V0R.

kabatha · Answer

I've just encountered an exact similar challenge as explained above. I've tried a couple of things, but nothing seems to work at the moment. @Dell-DylanJ what are the steps for reseating the CMC card?.

DELL-Chris H · Answer

Kabatha,

In order to reseat the card, you would want to power off the server, then open the case and identify the card seen below with the orangish handles, that is the CMC. You would need to undo the orange handles to reseat the card.

Let me know if this helps.

kabatha · Answer

Dear Chris,

Thanks for your response.

I've tried this several times, but it doesn't resolve the issue. I only have 1 card, thus tried the other slot, but still the same. I suspect, the card is broken and a replacement would be a better option. Not sure where I can buy a replacement card (with the latest firmware) and have it shipped to my destination. Any leads?

Thank you,

DELL-Chris H · Answer

Kabatha,

I am not seeing them listed on the site, so you would likely need to check with Spare Parts (800-357-3355) or a 3rd party vendor. You would need one of the following part numbers

332-0873

34V0R

Y1F41

PowerEdge Hardware General

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