Fortigate 50E Dying. Packet loss and lan ports stop forwarding. Update 2022-02-03 6th unit.

[jkim86]

Anybody else seeing a pattern with 50E dying? I had these deployed for about two years. I've had two starting to have packet loss and one that's not forwarding even though port is up. I saw a thread on reddit and this is starting to become a growing concern. I was able to have the client replace two of them but I'm afraid we're going to start seeing more problems with the 50E. Anybody know if we can RMA these still without support? The client is going to lose confidence in Fortinet. This rate of failure is unacceptable.

Update 2022-02-03:

Had another two breaking down. 1 is showing slow speeds. The other one isn't passing traffic even though port is up. 6th 50E broken now.

Update 2022-04-26:

2 more units bad.

[jkim86]

hurray 2 more dying.

[pirmin]

I have also one more dying last week (very low speed and packet loss). 3rd one in 3 Months. 

[AKWS1991]

Just got two 51E having the same issues (WAN OK, all LAN port showing packet loss)

In this week, both are proceeding RMA.

I am afraid there will have a lot upcoming...

[Rob_Roche]

We have seen several of these appear over the past 6 months so I have opened one and had a look at it (I am an electronics engineer and like to fiddle more than I should!).

My dead 50E is now alive and kicking having reheated the main CPU which is a small BGA device under the heatsink. (For history this is a common problem with BGA devices which dont have enough cooling, especially following the introduction of lead free solder 10 years ago.  This results in slight expansion of the cpu / board and mild warping and then the previously flat cpu sitting on a bed of solder balls develops a dry joint and thus a bad connection).

I ran  ping test from the previously unresponsive LAN side and saw 400 packets with 1 dropped packet and a fully responsive web interface (this was completely dead in this instance previously). I have also updated the firmware and will soak test this now to see how it perfoms over a few days / week. 

[badnerone]

The solution WORKS!! I re-heated 3 FGT30E / FGT50E and one FGT works well from 1 month in a hot place ( 25/38 C )

Thanks !

[jkim86]

@Rob_Roche Do you have before and after pics?

[Rob_Roche]

Not much difference to be seen, however here is a pic from after it was heated and was running - CPU highlighted. (yes I know it should have a heatsink on it - was testing in the immediate aftermath)

[londonnet]

I may try this, I have a 50e that that LAN side is very slow, even with a blank config on the latest FW.

Are you just using a reflow hot air blower directly on the top of the chip? Whats your method?

[felipevieira]

Thank you so much! More 1 FG-50E firmware 6.2.16 saved by this post.

Before: DL - 50-80mbps  and UP: 250mbps
After: DL - 550mbps and UP: 250mbps

Used an heat gun, a digital cooking thermometer and aluminum foil to cover the PCB, only small window for the CPU.
I controlled the temperature in range of 280-300 ºC for a minute and everything worked well after cooled down.

[Kangming]

Hi jkim86,

The problem of insufficient flash space of 50E will cause the device to fail to work normally. The ISSUE should match this. It is recommended to upgrade to 6.2.14, and then release some flash space in the following release notes so that low-end models such as FGT30/50 can work an keep up the good work, thank you.

https://docs.fortinet.com/document/fortigate/6.2.14/fortios-release-notes/413989/fortigate-30e-and-5...