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Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Hardware Installation and Reference Guide
OL-23069-06
Chapter 7      Managing the Switch Hardware
Configuring EPLDs
• If the fan is physically present but not working properly, the status is Failure. 
If the status for one of the fan trays is “Failure,” the status field also displays the numbers of the failing 
fans. For the Cisco Nexus 7010 system, each system fan tray has six fans to cool the supervisor and I/O 
modules and each fabric fan tray has one fan to cool the fabric modules. For the Cisco Nexus 7018 
system, each fan tray has 14 fans to cool the supervisor, I/O modules, and fabric modules as follows:
• Top fan tray
–
Fans 1 through 12 cool the I/O modules in slots 1 through 8 and the supervisor module in slot 9.
–
Fans 13 and 14 cool the fabric modules
• Bottom fan tray
–
Fans 1 through 12 cool the I/O modules in slots 11 through 18 and the supervisor module in slot 
10
–
Fans 13 and 14 are not used
Configuring EPLDs
The Cisco Nexus 7000 Series switches contain several programmable logical devices (PLDs) that 
provide hardware functionalities in all modules. Cisco provides electronic programmable logical device 
(EPLD) image upgrades to enhance hardware functionality or to resolve known issues. PLDs include 
electronic programmable logical devices (EPLDs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and 
complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), but they do not include ASICs. In this document, the 
term EPLD is used for FPGA and CPLDs.
The advantage of having EPLDs for some module functions is that when you need to upgrade those 
functions, you just upgrade their software images instead of replacing their hardware.
Note EPLD image upgrades for an I/O module disrupt the traffic going through the module because the 
module must power down briefly during the upgrade. The system performs EPLD upgrades on one 
module at a time, so at any one time the upgrade disrupts only the traffic going through one module.
Cisco does not provide upgrade EPLD images very frequently, and you do not have to upgrade your 
EPLD images unless they fix the functions for the hardware that you are using in your Cisco Nexus 7000 
Series switch. The EPLD image upgrades are independent from the Cisco NX-OS In-Service Software 
Upgrade (ISSU) process, which upgrades the system and kickstart images with no impact on the network 
environment.
When Cisco makes an EPLD image upgrade available, the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series FPGA/EPLD 
Upgrade Release Notes announce its availability, and you can download it from http://www.cisco.com.
This section includes the following topics:
• Deciding When to Upgrade EPLDs, page 7-35
• Switch Requirements, page 7-37
• EPLDs Available with Release 6.0(1), page 7-38
• Determining Whether to Upgrade EPLD Images, page 7-40
• Downloading the EPLD Images, page 7-40
• EPLD Images Needed for vPCs, page 7-41
• EPLD Images Needed for LISP, page 7-42