Is my Netgate 6100 bricked? 3 lights flashing (blue, blue, green)
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This afternoon my netgate 6100 went down and is unreachable.
All three front LEDs are flashing: blue, blue, green (left to right), see the gif below.
I've tried unplugging and when plugging back in, the box immediately starts flashing all three lights in the same pattern.
I can't find any documentation on what this light pattern means or how to resolve. Can anyone help?
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R ryanrozich referenced this topic on
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Hmm, that's not a known LED pattern.
Do you see anything on the console?
Steve
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@stephenw10 which console? I only have the netgear 6100 connected to power and 2 cat6 cables - 1 WAN from ATT modem and 1 LAN to a 2.5G switch. I connect to the pfsense+ web console for admin but that web console is unreachable currently
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On the USB/serial console:
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/solutions/netgate-6100/connect-to-console.htmlThat's where you might see errors if it's failing to boot.
Steve
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@stephenw10 Followed the instructions on the page to connect to the console.
- Installed the drivers for my mac
- hooked up the micro usb from the console port on the 6100 to my mac and then
- looked for the console port as instructed
(base) ryan@XXX-534 ~ % ls /dev/cu.* /dev/cu.Bluetooth-Incoming-Portthat was the only device that showed up.
Of course, that didnt look like the netgear console but tried to connect anyway, nothing output to the console. I tried power cycling the netgear 6100 but no other devices showed up under
dev/cu.*and even tried keeping that console open while I power cycled the 6100, but still nothing appeared.As soon as I reconnect the power that LED pattern starts flashing, it doesn't appear that there is any delay for a bios loading or a boot sequence to start
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@ryanrozich said in Is my Netgate 6100 bricked? 3 lights flashing (blue, blue, green):
ls /dev/cu.*
I don't know the answer for the current condition of your 6100 (I presumed all flashing = MMC failure but Steve is the guru). However, the recommended command is
ls -l /dev/cu.*So something like this:
@MBP-Rob ~ % ls -l /dev/cu.* crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 0x9000003 26 Oct 14:35 /dev/cu.Bluetooth-Incoming-Port crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 0x9000001 26 Oct 14:35 /dev/cu.RobsBeatsSolo @MBP-Rob ~ %It can help to find the correct device, if/when you achieve a connection. When you do it should look something like this:
@MBP-Rob ~ % ls -l /dev/cu.* crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 0x9000003 20 Oct 14:09 /dev/cu.Bluetooth-Incoming-Port crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 0x9000001 20 Oct 14:09 /dev/cu.RobsBeatsSolo crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 0x9000007 26 Oct 13:24 /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 0x9000005 26 Oct 13:24 /dev/cu.usbserial-022D09C0 @MBP-Rob ~ % @MBP-Rob ~ % sudo screen /dev/cu.usbserial-022D09C0 115200Good luck!
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@RobbieTT said in Is my Netgate 6100 bricked? 3 lights flashing (blue, blue, green):
ls -l /dev/cu.*
Thanks @RobbieTT tried the recommend the same but still cant get the console device to show up. See below:
(base) ryan@YALO-534 ~ % ls -l /dev/cu.* crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 0x9000001 Nov 2 08:00 /dev/cu.Bluetooth-Incoming-PortI also uploaded this 29 second video that shows:
- how immediately the LED pattern flashes when the netgate 6100 is plugged in
- how the console is connected
- what the
ls -l /dev/cu.*returns
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Video very helpful and I don't see much of an attempt at the bios.
If you are lucky it is input voltage sag under load. Do you have an alternative way to power it or a way to test the incoming voltage under load?
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Yup, that looks like a power fault somewhere. Try a different power brick if you can.
I'd be very surprised if you saw anything at the console whilst it's doing that. Though you should see the console even without power connected as the adapter chip is powered by the connecting client device.
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@RobbieTT I hooked up a kill-a-watt to the plug to measure. Here are the readings
@stephenw10 Is this power brick proprietary (i.e. should I order another from netgate) or might it be possible that I have something laying around or could order from amazon to try?
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It's a pretty standard 12V PSU. It's overrated for most conditions. For a test I'd expect many 12V PSUs to work fine. Be sure it's wired as center positive (most are) and has around the same current rating. Though as I say the 6100 pretty much never draws anything like the 5A it's rated for.
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@stephenw10 I did try another power brick that I had in my closet, when it plugged in there was a slight pop and no lights. I tried plugged the original netgate power brick back and now there are no leds lighting up at all now. I wonder if I blew something.
I bought this Oct 2021 so assume I am out of any netgate warranty. Im also not an electrical engineers so its out of my depth to try and fix the electronic components. Is there anywhere that repairs these?
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@ryanrozich said in Is my Netgate 6100 bricked? 3 lights flashing (blue, blue, green):
when it plugged in there was a slight pop and no lights.
That doesn't sound good.
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@ryanrozich Did you make sure it was the correct voltage and the center pin was + ?
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@ryanrozich said in Is my Netgate 6100 bricked? 3 lights flashing (blue, blue, green):
I did try another power brick that I had in my closet, when it plugged in there was a slight pop and no lights
As others have written - go and look if:
- the voltage written on the PSU you have used is 12V
- look at the polarity of the plug if it has the correct polarity (plus in the middle)
Electric devices are generally protected against false polarity by a kind of fuse but not against overvoltage.
In the badest case you have to find a technician that opens the box and take a look inside. -
@ryanrozich said in Is my Netgate 6100 bricked? 3 lights flashing (blue, blue, green):
@stephenw10 I did try another power brick that I had in my closet, when it plugged in there was a slight pop and no lights. I tried plugged the original netgate power brick back and now there are no leds lighting up at all now. I wonder if I blew something.
I bought this Oct 2021 so assume I am out of any netgate warranty. Im also not an electrical engineers so it's something out of my depth to try and fix the electronic components. Is there anywhere that repairs these?
Something blew for sure but to remove all doubt, you didn't cause this.
This result was one of the probable outcomes as, from the outset, you had a power failure either at the PSU level that damaged the device, or - more likely - you had a power failure on the device side that damaged the PSU.
The reason Steve and I zoomed into this view was the lack of USB console. As mentioned earlier, this is more like a separate component that relies on its power from the USB interface. In a 'perfect' design (something never achieved) this would be so isolated from the host machine that it would never share a failure path. In this case it clearly did so the main PCB was almost certainly toasted.
A couple of things to note - don't use either the Negate brick (clearly damaged) or the donor 12v brick again, unless you have the means to test the donor brick. You may have just surrendered it to science.
In common with many 12v DC devices there tends not to be a great deal of power protection built into this class of devices (reversed polarity mitigation is easy so it tends to be baked-in to every design). I'm not throwing rocks at the manufacturer when I say that there should be more protection - but the manufacturer is far from alone in this 'design' problem at this class of hardware.
I'd forget about getting it repaired as there is already a known secondary failure (ie console) in this case. The test here was more to see if the failure was isolated to the console. A Hail Mary, if you like. Bummer.
I know it is an expensive item (I have one that is now outside of its original warranty). The warranty action here is down to Netgate and we will never see what arrangements they have with the manufacturer.
The rest is down to their goodwill or where you live. Here in the UK or EU it would be nuts for Netgate to fight a claim for anything under 2 years old. The law is less clear between say 2 & 6 years and I would suggest that you forget it in most cases (the UK can sometimes be worth it for expensive items well-under 4 years old as you only risk the small claims court fee - but only sometimes).
Design shortcomings does not always equal design error. A failure rate is anticipated and as painful as it is to acknowledge it, the bell-curve has an early side.
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Mmm, indeed that doesn't sound good. Are you sure that other power brick was suitably rated as others have asked?
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@stephenw10 Just looked, and the voltage of the PSU used was over 12v so I probably did blow something by trying this test. It was the brick that was powering my PoE switch which is likely way too overpowered for my netgate 6100. I should have been more careful :(
So while I was originally getting this unknown 3 LED light pattern with the Netgate PSU plugged in and no console, now I get nothing when plugging that Netgate PSU in. I live in Austin TX USA. This is my 3rd netgate appliance and I've picked them all up locally. Are there any options to get this reparied?
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You can open a ticket and see what the options are. But if we are able to do anything it would be swapping out the board which would probably be the majority of the cost. However I'm not sure we can for the 6100.
Steve
