I'm working on testing several FESX448-PREM switches.
One of the switches in my test group is known to be bad. It was previously
installed as a top of cabinet switch, 42 servers were connected to it, all
port lights came on, full duplex, no errors, low CPU, etc but ports 13-24
would not forward traffic. As I understand it, this is due to a bad ASIC
that covers port region 13-24.
However, I now have this bad switch at my work bench and I cannot replicate
the same forwarding issue with port region 13-24.
At my work bench, I have port 1 as the uplink and I've been connecting my
laptop to ports 2-48 sequentially using a CAT6 cable while running a
continuous ping to a public IP. Interestingly, all the ports now work fine
-- port region 13-24 no longer has forwarding issues.
Does anyone know how this is possible? If there's a bad ASIC for port
region 13-24, then I'd expect this problem to occur 100% of the time.
I tried a couple other things afterwards. I had the theory that I needed
more ports active at once in order to trigger the forwarding issue. So I
first took a layer 2 switch and connected it on a bunch of ports with the
FESX448. CPU usage immediately went to 100% on the FESX448. I figured
something recursive routing was happening with the layer 2 switch. Next, I
put the layer 2 switch into boot monitor mode so it wouldn't do any
routing. That resolved the 100% CPU issue, but again I'm still unable to
replicate the traffic forwarding issues with ports 13-24.
Any suggestions on how I can replicate the forwarding issue and effectively
test the remaining switches would be much appreciated!
One of the switches in my test group is known to be bad. It was previously
installed as a top of cabinet switch, 42 servers were connected to it, all
port lights came on, full duplex, no errors, low CPU, etc but ports 13-24
would not forward traffic. As I understand it, this is due to a bad ASIC
that covers port region 13-24.
However, I now have this bad switch at my work bench and I cannot replicate
the same forwarding issue with port region 13-24.
At my work bench, I have port 1 as the uplink and I've been connecting my
laptop to ports 2-48 sequentially using a CAT6 cable while running a
continuous ping to a public IP. Interestingly, all the ports now work fine
-- port region 13-24 no longer has forwarding issues.
Does anyone know how this is possible? If there's a bad ASIC for port
region 13-24, then I'd expect this problem to occur 100% of the time.
I tried a couple other things afterwards. I had the theory that I needed
more ports active at once in order to trigger the forwarding issue. So I
first took a layer 2 switch and connected it on a bunch of ports with the
FESX448. CPU usage immediately went to 100% on the FESX448. I figured
something recursive routing was happening with the layer 2 switch. Next, I
put the layer 2 switch into boot monitor mode so it wouldn't do any
routing. That resolved the 100% CPU issue, but again I'm still unable to
replicate the traffic forwarding issues with ports 13-24.
Any suggestions on how I can replicate the forwarding issue and effectively
test the remaining switches would be much appreciated!