Gigabit Switch

[weovpac]

Which is the better switch and or recommended?

 

[jaqie]

Well, if you can solder and want a very cheap and well working switch (with a single flaw that needs soldering eventually) then I highly recommend the GS108v2 8 port gigabit with 9k jumbo frames switch. It is small but very well built in a metal case. The achilles' heel is that two of the capacitors inside are 1000uF 6.3V despite the fact that it runs on 12VDC. Over time, say a year or so, the caps bulge and die. I personally went to goldmine-elec.com and ordered a few snits and snoodles I wanted along with a couple of 1000uF 25V caps for I think it was $1 for a 2 pack new.

Now, to be fair, I don't know if it has a voltage halver or 5v regulator inside for a section, but it's a very well known flaw of these switches. They do have a lifetime warranty but there is no "warranty seal" on them so I opt to do this once it gets the "flashing death" you will find out about if you google about. To me, it's no big deal at all to replace a couple caps, because I have wanted this particular switch since I first saw an older 100Mbps version years ago - not many switches are so compact while having a metal case and "LEDs in the ethernet jack" type of activity/link LEDs.

 

[weovpac]

They had the D-Link at my local Office Depot for $20 after MIR, so I bought it. Installed it and without doing anything I'm getting 35-40 MB/s.

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: jaqie
Now, to be fair, I don't know if it has a voltage halver or 5v regulator inside for a section, but it's a very well known flaw of these switches.

Most 12VDC devices these days employ a simple voltage regulator stepping down the 12V to whatever they need. Ethernet signalling is done at ~2.2V IIRC. I wouldn't blame the engineers who specified the PCB layout on the switch, as they probably knew exactly what they were doing.

It's much more likely that the capacitors were sourced improperly and Netgear's manufacturing division purchased a batch of capacitors with bad electrolyte. This is the most common reason for electrolytic capacitor failure today: cheap Chinese or Taiwanese capacitors with poor electrolyte properties.

Regardless, as you indicate Netgear carries a lifetime warranty on that switch. Why on earth would you try to replace the capacitors yourself and risk voiding the warranty?

I wouldn't give anyone that advice.

 

[jaqie]

First of all, it's a well known flaw, secondly, the price of the switch combined with losing usually your only switch while rmaing it and costing cash for shipping. Third, it isn't a bad batch as they have been selling this switch with bad caps for years and any switch you RMA will come back with the same problem. Nowhere in the manual or on the device does it indicate anything about voiding warranty by opening it, so it's not such a bad thing as it is with most devices that state it is such.
Add all that up and you get cheap, reliable switch with warranty for ~$50 and a couple capacitors.

I believe they are nichicon (nichion?) caps, I dont want to unplug it to make sure, but as I recall that's a good oem for caps.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

I say spend a bit more and get a HP switch.
They have life time warranty's, you drop it, destroy it, leave it in the rain, buy it on ebay and it doesn't work. They over night you a new one then you send the old one back.
We use a lot of HP swtiches where i work.
And here at home i have a Procurve 1800-24G and it works flawlessly. and just the other day i put the Vlan's to work making port 20 a separate network for when im working on computers here that have viruses and such. So they cant see any of my network, only the internet. had to add the vlan to my router then setup all the filter rules so it couldn't see my 192 network from its 10.10 addresses

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: jaqie
First of all, it's a well known flaw... Third, it isn't a bad batch as they have been selling this switch with bad caps for years and any switch you RMA will come back with the same problem.

All I'm saying is that over-volting a capacitor is not likely to cause electrolyte decomposition as you suggested. Normal electrolyte doesn't decompose that quickly unless it is exposed to high temperatures, which are induced by ripple currents. A much more important metric is therefore the ripple current tolerance of the capacitor. If you exceed this tolerance, you will cause electrolyte breakdown and risk blowing up the capacitor.

So if you're going to blame it on a design problem, blame the DC power supply adaptors they bundled, or blame the ripple current tolerance of the capacitors they chose. Either way, you're not going to fix it by just picking a capacitor with a higher DC voltage rating, unless you happen to pick a replacement capacitor that also has better ripple current tolerance and thermal properties. And without knowing what you're doing, you can easily create a paperweight.

I believe they are nichicon (nichion?) caps, I dont want to unplug it to make sure, but as I recall that's a good oem for caps.

Actually, if they are Nichicon, that might explain it. That is one of the only Japanese capacitor sources that has been explicitly implicated as a source of bad caps by Hewlett-Packard.

Originally posted by NickOlsen8390:
I say spend a bit more and get a HP switch.
They have life time warranty's, you drop it, destroy it, leave it in the rain, buy it on ebay and it doesn't work. They over night you a new one then you send the old one back.

I agree. Unless you're LOOKING for a soldering project, why bother? With the extra time you spent sourcing good replacement caps and performing the soldering, you could have paid for a better switch.

The HP ProCurve line is a great buy, IMO.