According to theNVIDIA Spectrum-X Switch Operating System (SX_OS) Troubleshooting Guide, theSystem Status LED behavioris a critical indicator of the switch’s internal operational state.
From the document:
“The System Status LED will blink green during system initialization. If the LED continues blinking for more than 5 minutes, it indicates that the Onyx OS hasfailed to load properly. The system may be stuck in the boot process, or the file system may be corrupted.”
This blinking LED beyond normal initialization time indicates that the system has either encountered a failure during software boot or is unable to transition from bootloader to the OS runtime environment (i.e., Onyx).
Key causes include:
Corrupted or missing system files.
Failed firmware or OS upgrade attempts.
Boot device (e.g., eMMC or SSD) issues or corrupted partitions.
Technically, during power-on:
The switch performs POST (Power-On Self Test).
Then the Onyx OS attempts to load from the boot partition.
If the Onyx OS kernel or root filesystem is invalid, the system halts boot, and the LED remains in ablinking state, as no successful OS load confirmation is triggered.
Remediation Steps (as per NVIDIA guide):
Access the switch throughconsoleandmonitor boot logs.
UseONIE recoveryor re-flash a stable Onyx OS version.
Check system storage integrity using built-in diagnostics.
Exact Extract Reference:
Source: NVIDIA SX_OS 3.9.3000 Documentation
Topic: Troubleshooting System Status LED
Extract: "If the LED blinks for more than 5 minutes and the switch is not accessible via CLI, the Onyx software failed to load properly and recovery procedures must be initiated."
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