2-8
Cisco 7204 Installation and Configuration Guide
OL-5101-02
Chapter2 Preparing for Installation
Site Requirements
•Maintain a minimum clearance of three inch es on the right and left of the chassis for t he cooling air
inlet and exhaust ports, respectively. Avoid placing the Cisco7204 in an overly conges ted rack or
directly next to another equipment rack; otherwise, the heated exha ust air from other equipment can
enter the inlet air vents and cause an overtemperature condition inside the router.
•Always install heavier equipment in the lower half of a rack to maintain a low center of grav ity an d
prevent the rack from falling over.
•If you use telco-type racks, be sure that the rack is bolted to the floor and sec ured bec ause in these
types of installations only one end of the chassis mounts to the two rack posts with the brackets.
Ensure that the weight of the chassis does not make the rack unstable.
•Install and use the cable-management bracket included with the Cisco7204 to keep cables organized
and out of the way of the port adapters and I/O controller. Consider the equip ment and cabling that
is already installed in the rack. Ensure that cables from other equipment will not impair access to
the port adapters, or require you to disconnect cables unnec ess arily t o pe rfo rm equi pme nt
maintenance or upgrades.
•If you are planning to install the cable-management brackets on a Cisco 7204 that you ar e
rack-mounting from the front, you must install the cable-management brackets and the rack-mount
brackets before you install the chassis in the rack.
•Provide an adequate chassis ground (earth) connection for yo ur rout er cha ssis.
Note We strongly recommend that you provide a chassis ground connection. Refer to the section
“Providing a Chassis Ground Connection for the Router Chassis” section on page 3-11 in
“Chapter3, “Installing the Cisco 7204”” for instructions.
In addition to the preceding guidelines, review the precautions for avoiding overtemperature conditions
in the following section “Site Environment.” To properly install the Cisco7204 chassis in a rack, refer
to the instructions in the “Rack-Mounting the Cisco 7204” section on page3-1 in Chapter 3, “Installing
the Cisco 7204.”
Site Environment
Table 2 -1 lists the operating and nonoperating environmental site requirements. The ranges listed are
those within which the Cisco7204 will continue to operate; however, a measurement that is approaching
the minimum or maximum of a range indicates a potential problem. You can maintain normal operation
by anticipating and correcting environmental anomalies before they approach a maximum operating
range.