Bad EEPROM Cisco error

There have been few occasions when telecommunication engineers are seeking for help from our support team because of Bad EEPROM error. As an example on Cisco model C6880-X-LE, engineer plugged unknown vendor third party 10G DWDM ZR optical transceiver and got the Bad EEPROM error. Based on this error it was not possible to establish a link. If we look deeper, there are two potential reasons why this error occur:

  • transceiver has bad GBIC EEPROM checksum and therefore module gets blocked by Cisco switch;
  • transceivers EEPROM memory chip has been damaged;

 

Port Name Status Vlan Duplex Speed Type
Te1/2/7 faulty routed full 10G bad EEPROM
 
C6880#sh int tenGigabitEthernet 1/2/7 capabilities
TenGigabitEthernet1/2/7
Model: C6880-X-LE-16P10G
Type: bad EEPROM
Speed: 10000
Duplex: full
Trunk encap. type: 802.1Q
Trunk mode: on,off,desirable,nonegotiate
Channel: yes
Broadcast suppression: percentage(0-100)
Flowcontrol: rx-(off,on),tx-(off,on)
Membership: static
Fast Start: yes
QOS scheduling: rx-(1p7q4t), tx-(1p7q4t)
QOS queueing mode: rx-(cos,dscp), tx-(cos,dscp)
CoS rewrite: yes
ToS rewrite: yes
Inline power: no
SPAN: source/destination
UDLD yes
Link Debounce: yes
Link Debounce Time: yes
Ports-in-ASIC (Sub-port ASIC) : 3-4,7-8 (1-8)
Remote switch uplink: no
Port-Security: yes
Dot1x: yes

As a solution to the first cause of the problem, we can offer to use EDGE Optical Solutions Cisco compatible DWDM 10G SFP+ transceivers:
For example below is the link to DWDM SFP+ 10G Channel 60 (ITU-T) module Cisco PN:

DWDM-SFP10G-29.55 (dwdm-sfp10g-29-55) With our transceivers, there is no EEPROM or compatibility issues!

In case of second possibility – EEPROM memory chip has been damaged.. then we recommend to open warranty case in vendor where this module has been bought..

 

Cheers