The Network Switch Nightmares - Trying to Replace my Dying(?) Cisco!
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- Опубліковано 27 кві 2024
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Hello there and welcome to my video. In today's video, I'll be trying to replace my old Cisco network switch that has been giving me some issues. I'll be replacing it with a Juniper EX3300, or at least I'll try. However, when trying to make the EX3300 quiet for my setup, I found some issues and had to resort to another option instead. I'll also be ending off the video with some basic troubleshooting of the Cisco switch to see if I can figure out where the issue is located.
Music, in order:
Beyond - Patrick Patrikios
Hanging Out - Bruno E.
Far Apart - Causmic
Papov - Yung Logos
Nine Lives - Unicorn Heads
Soul Searching - Causmic
Sunday Rain - Cheel
Sunny Days - Anno Domini Beats
Six Seasons - Unicorn Heads
Futuremono - Komorebi
Island Dream - Chris Haugen
Luxery - Causmic
The High Line - Causmic
A Caring Friend - Bad Snacks
Papov - Yung Logos
(yep, twice lol, I ran out of music it's such a long video)
I don't know why DaVinci Resolve keeps ruining the audio during the parts of the video where only a single audio track has audio in it on my timeline (during the noise tests/demos). If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know!
The track is set to mono in this case and is being given audio recorded at 48Khz with a bitrate of 256Kbps. It sounds fine on the timeline. I can't get it to sound good in the export though, it almost sounds like it's applying some kind of noise reduction to it.
x.x idk why you did all this but good luck!!! I had a rlly loud ubiquiti 100 gig switch i removed the fans and just glued two 140mm fans from be quiet that can push a lot of air at 3500rpm!
When u have a semi broken device and it fixes its self is so annoying
Totally agree, I'd much rather figure out what's wrong with it than not get the satisfaction of being able to pinpoint the issue
On the web interface of the SG200, do you see errors increment on the ports ?
Although it shouldn’t “just stop working” out of the blue like that, it could give you some information. I have one of those in the basement as well.
I love my EX3300 (-48T), but yes, replacing the fans in that thing was a nightmare. I eventually 3D printed a manifold to hold 2x 80mm fans externally. None of the fans I could find worked properly, they all emitted a high pitched whine. I ended up finding some NoiseBlocker 60mm fans that worked. It runs a little warm now, especially with SFP+ modules installed, but it never complains about temperature or fan RPM.
Have you tried locking the port speed to 1000 on the CISCO SFP port? I was getting strange negotiation results from a Cisco 2960 SFP port to my TP-Link 10G SFP+ switch (both using DAC or fiber), disabling auto negotiation and locking port speed resolved it. As a side note, when I took my first Cisco cert class back in the 90's, there was a troubleshooting step that was taught known as the "6 inch drop repair" to re-seat the IC's in 2500 series routers. Literally drop the router flat on the table from a height of about 6", and yes I did use once on a brand new router and it worked.
That's a good idea, I should give that a try!
Also, I love that that's a real troubleshooting step haha. I doubt it would still do much for this switch because none of the ICs are socketed, but I may just give it a go for the fun of it!
For the issue with the long screws, I use silicone tube (nitro fuel line for my RC cars) as anti vibration spacers in that scenario
I should pick some of that up, that's a brilliant idea!
Congrats on your first dip into the blue pool of Juniper. A couple of things for your journey. The SFP ports can be picky about optics. For example, my Cisco coded SFPs work just fine but my generic ones didn't play nice. Any of my coded optics both first party and third party work just make sure they're branded. I've had the best luck with Cisco or Juniper coded optics. The EX2200s are going fully EOL this year. The handling of layer 3 features changes a bit when you go to the newer EX2300 and later. I did a similar mod on my Quanta LB6m years ago and power supplies are the dangerous part for heat. If you want to use your bigger switch consider building a small isolation cabinet that is foam lined with intake and exhaust fans. You just need to dampen a little bit of the sound so nothing crazy.
Interesting that Cisco SFP's seem to work really well for you, I would've honestly expected it to specifically block other coded transceivers because companies are like that sometimes, but thanks for letting me know that Cisco SFP's will likely be a decently safe bet!
Also, thanks for the idea on the sound dampened cabinet! I've looked into that a little already, and it might be possible, but I'll have to see as my rack is already a pretty tight fit in my closet so it may or may not push it just over the edge of the tight clearance I've got
I've had a few of these, and their main issue (you almost got it) is bad capacitors. They typically misbehave when you use more ports and the temperature is higher, like in a closet. I've been able to fix them as they failed.
The original caps from Cisco (actually Linksys) are rated for 85C since these are "cheap" switches for SOHO, and being fanless their life does get shortened due to the higher temps. You can try replacing these caps with 105C ultra low ESR caps, that fixed all my issues.
Of course, YMMV, so take what I said with a huge boulder of salt.
There are other things to look at, such as why is your uplink to the Netgear negotiating 100Mbps. That one could be a simple wiring issue, if one of the pairs of the Ethernet cable is faulty, you will go from 1Gbps down to 100Mbps.
Good points! I actually opened up the Cisco and had footage of it, but I guess it never made it into the script. Pretty much the first thing I checked was the capacitors, but none of them had any issues with them, at least no visible issues.
As for the Netgear negotiation/cabling, I didn't make a point of it in the video (though I definitely should have!), but I ended up trying multiple cables throughout my bouts of troubleshooting on the switches - just not on camera (mainly because I knew it wasn't a cabling issue once I was at the point of filming it). The Netgear was indicating a full 1Gbps connection with its link LEDs, but I should give the Cisco's web UI a check to make sure that it's not negotiating at something odd like a 1000/100 link or something of the sort.
Thanks for great vid. love that juniper switch
The original Fans used in that "Network Switch" are "Delta Electronics" brand 😅. No wonder, is noisy like what server machine used
Awesome video dude!! gotta love the LTT Screwdriver its a Technicians greatest tool
Yep! Been using it for a little over a year now, it's amazing!
done the noctua fan swap on every piece of network equipment I have haha it's my first step for any new to me device
Im currently using a juniper ex series, its an absolute tank so far, its been up solid for a couple of years now
Nice video there sir. it differently can be a different world with working with CLI.
31:00 We generally just hit enter a time or two to get the terminal to output something so we have fields to type into. When you open up a terminal program such as PuTTY, it starts monitoring the port data, when you see the switch boot from serial, you will see the user prompt when it's complete. Since that user prompt has already been written to the screen of the CLI, new sessions that open up, won't get that information as it was already created. Hopes that helps/make sense
Usually "help" will give you a complete dump of command file within the operator you are working with.
After typing all the, I imagine you know all this anyway, lol
The keeping putty on to see the prompt is actually a great tip, got to try it out tomorrow!
PoE switches are really hard to get silent.. I haven't seen any one yet that had less than 10% idle power draw, often significantly higher - at least my various Cisco and HP Procurve are all at 60+ Watt idle draw for 450W max PoE budget, and that's beyond what such silent fans are able to move. I ended up dumping most of my enterprise gear on ebay and buying new passive TPLink switches instead.
Juniper EX 2200 C and 2300 C models are fanless. Expensive but fanless. Massive heatsink on the back.
I had the same Cisco/Linksys switch and I had the PoE version and both of them failed and are junk, the PoE one was smoking and almost caught on fire. The garbage is the best place for them as I would never trust that brand. I now use Dell PowerConnect 10GbE Enterprise managed switches and they have been running now for 4 years without any issues.
I noticed there is one more fan position within the power supply. Any chance that installing another fan there and have 3 of them would fix the problem? It might create an "air path" between the new fan and the fan inside the switch that will blow air directly through the power supply... This is something I did to my Zyxel XGS2210-52HP with Noctuas, running quietly and great (multiple temp sensors) for over a year now.
I to think you got a model with a missing fan.. and that one normal i Juniper have a fan heater in the PSU to control temp in there.
Interesting idea, I did actually think about that because it would make sense to have a fan on that vent. In the end though, I didn't because I wasn't sure if it would make enough of a difference (that power supply gets HOT!) and it would've been a decent bit of effort
You are a sort of diy guy. If i would be in this situation what you were in : i would extend the box upwards to gain thickness and just place a 12cm fans in it with ball bearing. The original fans are high power consuming little suckers.. so for sure i could replace with 6 larger cooler master masterfan(just by consumption) as i did in my personal pc and in my built servers. I have the advantage of space(what is not given in a datacenter)and i can convert that in to low noise+ you have a 3d printer( i dont have that). And the thing you said about electronics run hot.. yeah can(when its new probably yes and capacitors are not dried up a bit) when it is used ..big no-no! I converted all my stuff to overkill aio coolers- few servers and pc(what is also a ws/server hardware) -cool and silent as possible
That would be a pretty effective way to tackle the issue, just a pretty large project haha, so I didn't end up doing that in the end. Still a good idea though!
How much space is left in the case? I would personally see if you can put a large fan or 2 inside the unit under the cover, cut in some access for air and it should be good to go
It's a little tight in the case, though I could have maybe done something along the lines of that!
The background music at the beginning sounds like the old skype ringtone!
You're totally right, I can't unhear it now haha
It's like the connection between the Cisco and the Netgear is reverting to 100 Mbps, even though the LEDs indicate 1 Gbps.
Yeah, and it seems like it's only doing 100Mbps in one direction, and likely full gigabit in the other. Weird!
Most of the cisco switches released in the last 10 years only go loud for a few seconds and get quiet after about a minute or two.
Yeah, that sounds about right. The Cisco in this case is actually fanless, and the Juniper quiets down after a minute or two. It's just that there's near no tolerance for noise in this case because it's in a room I do audio recording work in. Tbh, was probably not my brightest idea to get that EX3300-48P haha.
Once you JUNOS, you're not going back
My guess for the issue is probably heat related.
It is possible, though the Cisco actually ran pretty cold most of it's life. I never noticed it getting exceptionally hot
Have you tried using a different ethernet cable ?
Yeah, I tried a bunch of different known-good cables when troubleshooting, just mainly off camera because by the time I was filming what was happening with the issue I was sure it wasn't a cabling issue. Should have mentioned that, though!
7:08 : That's Fast 😅
Your missing a fan inside thay unit which is why you have an alarm on the display
That alarm is actually just a default alarm that these Juniper switches sound when their MGMT port doesn't have an active link. Figured that out off camera and executed a little command to make it stop sending that alarm, because man, my laptop being connected to the MGMT port isn't really a situation where a mission critical alarm should be sounded haha!
not even testing the throughput properly. Cisco SG Series is better than the Juniper switch by far. I have 2 of these SG500x in a stack for High Availability with 3 Hypervisors. FAN noise is what it is, you get use to it after so long. I've worked in such noisy Data Centers It doesn't bother me.
Well, the throughput testing was done correctly enough to demonstrate the issue, wasn't it?
Also, this switch is an SG200 series, much below the 500 series if I'm not mistaken. Plus, the fan noise is not an issue of annoyance, and more so an issue surrounding the fact that I work on some semi-pro audio recording projects in the same room as this rack, so there cannot be any background fan noise, or it will wreck my recordings.