WS-8-150-AC power issue?

[Taigar]

Hello,

End of October 2016 I replaced our Toughswitches with wisp switches. They solved my speed problems, and seemed very reliable.
In total I have placed 14 wisp switches.

A couple of days before Christmas, one of the wisp switches wasn't responding. Luckily it was the last switch in line, as we have daisy chained our network across our property (about 160.000 square meter, containing 30 access points, all switches connected with ethernet)
I thought about a bad cable, changed the way the cable was terminated, and the switch was working again.

The day after (I guess no longer than 12-14 hours after I 'fixed' the problem), the switch again wasn't responding. This time I checked the cables on the other end, bypassed an ethernet surge protector, and the switch was working again.

After about 14 hours, the switch again stopped working. This time I went to the switch and noticed something strange. The fan was working full speed, and all the PoE lights were on. After a couple of seconds, the fan stopped and the lights turned off. A couple of seconds later the fan started working at full speed, and the lights turned on. It kept going this way, like it was rebooting. I didn't bring my laptop, so I couldn't try to access the Web GUI of the switch. I unplugged the main power to the switch, waited 15 seconds and powered it on again. It started working like it should.

Back home, I restored the config of the switch to another switch (WS-10-250-AC
WS-10-250-AC, ports 7-8 from WS-8-150-AC restore as ports 9-10 on WS-10-250-AC).

Next day the switch was in the same rebooting state as before, and I replaced it. Now everything is working fine.

Now I have 1 switch on my desk, but I can't seem to reproduce the problem. It had 5x 48V UAP connected, and 2x 24V UAP.
Yesterday I changed the IP, and let it running on my desk without load. It has an uptime of 1 day and 3 hours. I will let it run, but I don't think it will fail on my desk without load.
I can factory reset it, and check if it has the same power supply issue as some of the 250-AC models?
Or I can try to find as much spare PoE equipment as possible, and try to get some load on the switch.

What do you guys think is best to try in this case?

[sirhc]

The 150 watt power supplies were not having the issue, it was the 250 watts power supplies (as you did note this distinction), totally different power supplies.

The issue with the 250 watts was not that it failed with a heavy or full load they failed with a very light or no POE load.

Your issue seems weirder.

The fact that you changed cables and removed surge arresters fixed the issue even for a short time points me in a different direction then power supplies.

Luckily it was the last switch in line, as we have daisy chained our network across our property (about 160.000 square meter, containing 30 access points, all switches connected with ethernet)

This is my concern, you are spanning a large area presumably crossing multiple electrical service panel coverage areas with copper wire bonding their Earth Grounds with those Ethernet cables.

Surge arrestors will do nothing to stop ground current flow from one ground potential to another.

This post talks about this: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1816

When moving data from one service panel coverage area to another especially from one building to another you should use fiber.

Ground is not Ground and Ground Potential Difference = Current

[Taigar]

Thanks for your answer. I also thought about this problem. It could be static electricity / wrong grounding. But everything was connected good (only visual improvements could be made). I have our network connected this way:



All cable's are Toughcable Pro, with the UBNT connectors. I have one cable run of 120meter (not this switch), and it work without problems (gigabit). However, if I remove the surge protectors, it wasn't working properly (This was when I had toughswitches, don't know about wisp switches). Apparently the surge protectors connect the ground of the ethernet cable to the earth ground, and the Toughswitch isn't doing this correctly.

Back to the problem: I replace the WS-8-150-AC with a WS-10-250-AC, and it ran without problems for 2-3 weeks.
I powerd on the WS-8-150-AC on my desk, without 1 port connected to my home network. It also ran for 2-3 weeks.
I took the WS-8-150-AC back to the place where it didn't work, connected everything, and it worked for 1-2 days. Than it got into a 'boot loop' again.

I placed the WS-10-250-AC again, and it still works without any problems.

I have the WS-8-150-AC on my desk, and put some load on it. It has the following devices connected:

Port 1: connected to home network
Port 2: Normal PC (LAN)
Port 3: Yealink T41P PoE phone (48V)
Port 4: Yealink T41P PoE phone (48V)
Port 5: empty
Port 6: empty
Port 7: empty
Port 8: UAP-AC-PRO PoE (48V)

This works without problems. But if I connect another PC (my test ESXi machine) to port 5 or port 6 or port 7, the switch gets into the same 'boot loop'. The fan starts going to 100%, all network communication stops (lights stop flashing), but the PoE keeps working.
If I take out this ESXi machine again, it works.
I also tried connecting another PC, instead of the ESXi, same result.

I cannot exactly define were the problem is coming from, but I am sure this isn't good.

Can you provide me some steps to test the switch any further?

Edit: Can it have something to do with this: https://forum.netonix.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2379

[Julian]

There's no need for further testing, I've seen this behavior before, and it's not grounding, although that can cause issues like this.

What's happening is your board's 3.3v supply is oscillating under load: This can present as links not negotiating to full speed, randomly dropping, or, in severe cases as yours, the entire switch rebooting.
It's a very difficult thing for us to test for, as it takes quite a while (usually 12-24hrs) to manifest and only under certain conditions, some few of these made it through our testing. There is a fix in place on later revisions of this circuit, but as it is a hardware modification, an RMA is needed to correct this. We will have it on the way back to you as soon as possible, very sorry for the inconvenience.

RMA instructions can be found here: http://forum.netonix.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1259

[robgnet]

I have this exact same or similar issue. WS-8-150 runs fine if you leave it, The moment I go to plug in a laptop, the device will freeze and reboot. Same thing happens if I run cable test on any port working remotely, The unit started doing weird things a few weeks ago when powering one 24v wifi ap, causing the switch to error until it was unplugged. It is already upgraded to 1.4.7x. Would this be RMA also?

[sirhc]

I have this exact same or similar issue. WS-8-150 runs fine if you leave it, The moment I go to plug in a laptop, the device will freeze and reboot. Same thing happens if I run cable test on any port working remotely, The unit started doing weird things a few weeks ago when powering one 24v wifi ap, causing the switch to error until it was unplugged. It is already upgraded to 1.4.7x. Would this be RMA also?

Yes, sorry. We have addressed this issue but there are at least 100 if not 200 units out there that may have the issue (estimated).

[robgnet]

Are their 100 or 200 units waiting for RMA, or will it be quick RMA?

[Julian]

I've been turning these around next day in most if not all cases.

[robgnet]

Awesome, well I have to replace it, to RMA it,

[sirhc]

Are their 100 or 200 units waiting for RMA, or will it be quick RMA?

We are estimating that there may possibly be 100-200 defective units out there, not 100-200 stacked up.