Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switches support bootup diagnostics and runtime diagnostics. Bootup diagnostics include disruptive tests and nondisruptive tests that run during system bootup and system reset.

Runtime diagnostics (also known as health monitoring diagnostics) include nondisruptive tests that run in the background during normal operation of the switch.

Bootup diagnostics detect faulty hardware before bringing the switch online. Bootup diagnostics also check the data path and control path connectivity between the supervisor and the ASICs. The following table describes the diagnostics that are run only during switch bootup or reset.

Bootup diagnostics also include a set of tests that are common with health monitoring diagnostics.

Bootup diagnostics log any failures to the onboard failure logging (OBFL) system. Failures also trigger an LED display to indicate diagnostic test states (on, off, pass, or fail).

You can configure Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switches to either bypass the bootup diagnostics, or run the complete set of bootup diagnostics.

Health monitoring diagnostics provide information about the health of the switch. They detect runtime hardware errors, memory errors, software faults, and resource exhaustion.

Health monitoring diagnostics are nondisruptive and run in the background to ensure the health of a switch that is processing live network traffic.

The following table describes the health monitoring diagnostics for the switch.

The following table describes the health monitoring diagnostics that also run during system boot or system reset.

During switch bootup or reset, the bootup diagnostics include tests for the in-service expansion modules in the switch.

When you insert an expansion module into a running switch, a set of diagnostics tests are run. The following table describes the bootup diagnostics for an expansion module. These tests are common with the bootup diagnostics. If the bootup diagnostics fail, the expansion module is not placed into service.

Health monitoring diagnostics are run on in-service expansion modules. The following table describes the additional tests that are specific to health monitoring diagnostics for expansion modules.