Do Switches fail

ptonsparky

ptonsparky

Tom
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
My house is wired Cat 5 with NetGear GS108 switch.
Do switches fail? What seems to be a very simple program change can morph into hours of WTH is going on. Yesterday everything fine. This morning continual "check cable" when attempting to make a change. Log out, cycle switch, load software, maybe make the change maybe not. The only difference I can see at the moment is the sprinklers are running with the VFD, PLC, and HMI all actively talking. No issue until I want to make a simple program change while all are running.
 
I think simple switches will last a lot longer than routers will, but they are man made and still likely to fail at some time.
 
Absolutely yes, though it's usually because of something dumb like a capacitor or fan rather than the silicon.

Edit: Ironically enough, I have a dead GS108 sitting on my desk awaiting diagnosis. Beautiful little thing, when they work, anyway...
 
Everything fails eventually. With switches they last a lot longer if only lightly loaded Back in the early 1960's I helped my dad replace our hallway 3 way switch with an illuminated mercury filled three way switch. Only had a 60 watt load ( 0.5 Amps ) and lasted over 50 years. I replaced most of my house switches with illuminated decorations style 40 years ago. One of the kitchen illuminated light source is slowly dying but none of them failed, even the 15 amp switch for garbage disposal. The old switches from the 1950's only had a rating of maybe 6 amps that supply house called garbage builders specials. They often failed within 20 years.
 
At first I thought you had a managed switch from all what you are saying, but that's just a simple dumb switch. I would suspect your router but it's probably a good time to upgrade the switch anyway since the current versions provide PoE if you need it.

-Hal
 
Of course network switches fail, they're made of electronics. Sometimes they die in six months, sometimes in eight years.

IMHO there's no point in replacing an unmanaged switch if it still works, and I certainly wouldn't do that on the off chance I might want PoE in the future.
 
Wonder if you have an IP conflict? Is everything DHCP, IPs assigned by the router? What were you trying to change the programming on?
zbang said:
IMHO there's no point in replacing an unmanaged switch if it still works, and I certainly wouldn't do that on the off chance I might want PoE in the future.
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I agree, but how are you going to know if it's bad if you don't swap it out? If you were an IT guy you would have one in your backpack to try.

-Hal
 
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ptonsparky said:
Does it hurt to hit one switch than another? I have two switches between my PLC equipment and my desktop.
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No problem. You do it all the time. But now that I know that you have two switches that makes troubleshooting easier. Try disconnecting some things that you don't use all the time and try swapping those two switches.

-Hal
 
I have been the IT guy and did usually have a spare 8-port switch close at hand. My point about replacement was about doing so just to get PoE. Individual ports also go bad (as do cables, of course).

(Only one 8-port unmanaged switch in the home network, but also a 28 port managed switch to get some 10g ports; might have to pull out the 24 port 10g switch if I fire up a few more video systems :D. Also have 10g fiber coming in.)
 
hbiss said:
No problem. You do it all the time. But now that I know that you have two switches that makes troubleshooting easier. Try disconnecting some things that you don't use all the time and try swapping those two switches.

-Hal
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It appears that one port of the 5-port is suspicious. No lights blinking when in use while the others all have two. It was the port my desktop was using. I'll try that for a few.
 
ptonsparky said:
My house is wired Cat 5 with NetGear GS108 switch.
Do switches fail? What seems to be a very simple program change can morph into hours of WTH is going on. Yesterday everything fine. This morning continual "check cable" when attempting to make a change. Log out, cycle switch, load software, maybe make the change maybe not. The only difference I can see at the moment is the sprinklers are running with the VFD, PLC, and HMI all actively talking. No issue until I want to make a simple program change while all are running.
Click to expand...

GS108 switches fail on me monthly.
 
Ya they fail! maybe a pin inside the port got stuck inside the port(it happens). And\or get a can of compressed air and blow it out. Is it 1 port or the whole switch?
 
cabledawg said:
Ya they fail! maybe a pin inside the port got stuck inside the port(it happens). And\or get a can of compressed air and blow it out. Is it 1 port or the whole switch?
Click to expand...
I thought one port, but it still randomly occurs so I'm scratching that theory. I'm beginning to think it was the last Firmware change for the CLICK. It could very well be me though.
I have a couple systems I still work with and normally would update the firmware upon the next visit. I won't be doing that until I've figured out the problem here.
 
ptonsparky said:
I thought one port, but it still randomly occurs so I'm scratching that theory. I'm beginning to think it was the last Firmware change for the CLICK. It could very well be me though.
I have a couple systems I still work with and normally would update the firmware upon the next visit. I won't be doing that until I've figured out the problem here.
Click to expand...
I’ve found the switch mode wall warts for these switches fail prematurely. I’ve had other wall warts get intermittent before failing completely.
 
Guess I'll open a case with AD help line.

Communication between the VFD and CLICK just stops. No error codes but data from VFD does not update. If the CLICK was not getting a response from the VFD as expected, I would get an error code 11. Cycling the PLC from Run to Stop then back to Run, either physically or via software, restarts communication.

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I have several rungs similar to 1-5. Data in DS20 does not change when not working.
 
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