I've had an unbelievably long run of hardware failures this year. First a Hitachi 500GB hard drive failed in my Windows 2003 Server, then the Apacer USB thumb drive I was using for ReadyBoost, and now my new GigE Ethernet switch, a Netgear GS108, is malfunctioning. Predictably, all of the failures have been after the 30 day mark, which means that I've had to go through an RMA process instead of a simple return.
The Netgear GS108 is particularly frustrating because it didn't do something simple like emit smoke and die. That would have been easy to diagnose. Instead it would alternate between a blinking failure mode and normal operation. In twenty years I've never seen an Ethernet switch or hub fail, so I wasted two days looking at everything except the switch.
The symptom is easy to see - all of the lights turn on for a second, then they all turn off, even on ports with nothing plugged in. Any PCs that are connected report that a network cable is unplugged. This may go on for a few seconds to a couple of minutes, then it will start working again, then it will fail again. The problem seemed to be most prevalent when 1000Mbps devices were mixed with 100Mbps devices. If all devices are 1000 or all devices are 100, then the GS108 worked fine.
Reviews on newegg.com show that a minority of other users have experienced the same problem I did.
I talked to Technical Support at Netgear. They immediately issued an RMA for the switch. Unfortunately, after waiting a week for the new GS108 to arrive, the new unit malfunctioned in the same way as the old unit. So I believe this problem is endemic to the GS108.
I've replaced the GS108 with a Dell PowerConnect 2708. It costs about 50% more than the GS108, but it is a fully managed switch that receives rave reviews from users. The Dell 2708 also includes a one year next-day parts warranty, as opposed to Netgear who charges you $50 for a next day exchange. You might as well order a new one from NewEgg.
I plugged in the Dell 2708 and it has worked flawlessly. I'm just running it in unmanaged mode since I have no need for VLANs or port aggregation.
The PowerConnect 2708 lists on Dell's web site for $158 if you just do a Google search, but that's the Medium/Large Business price. If you look in the Small Business section, the price is $109 with a $20 discount, or $89. Great deal:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/pwcnt_2708?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
Found this post while searching for answers to similar behavior with my GS108. Over at the Netgear forums a couple of people have mentioned problems that point to the power supplies. Namely, that the 12vdc 1.0A supply might not be sufficient. Personally I'll be digging a 1500mA supply out of my junk box and giving that a try.
ReplyDeleteHope your other readers might find that useful too...
which versions of the switches do you have??
ReplyDeleteto tell.
if the serial number starts with 127 it is the version 1 and if the S/N starts with 1DR then its a version 2.
Blinking lights of death. Symptoms:
ReplyDeleteGS108 resets every few seconds with ALL green LEDs for the cable connections blinking in unison as it does so.
Tends to go with mixed speed connections (ie 1GB & 100MB) and with more devices plugged in.
Fix seems straight forward: There will be two 6.3v 1000uF capacitors inside the box that have blown (the flat top of the can will bulge). Replace these bust caps with your trusty soldering iron use a higher voltage cap (I happened to have two 15v 1000uF caps knocking about) and you're good to go. There is either a dodgy batch of caps or simply a poor design - but replacing them is a simple exercise if you have the relatively simple skills and the replacement parts cost pennies. Could I have used the warranty... possibly but its quicker, easier and less likely to break again to repair the one I have than get a new one with the same fault waiting to happen.
Very helpful, I had the same problem and found the 2 capacitors had failed.
ReplyDeleteSame trouble with my GS108 lately. Any more than two NICs + the uplink and all lights blink. At first I thought one of the NICs had gone bad. After G-searching to this page I opened the switch to see that indeed one of those two 6.3V 1000uF caps had blown. Normally only see this on a motherboard (e.g. Dell GX270/280s).
ReplyDeleteNow to see if I can source the caps w/o having to Mouser them.
Follow up to my previous comment above. Was able to source them locally, though big 25V Nichicon were the smallest they had. Mounted them sideways OK and now I can load up all 8-ports without the blink-of-death coming back.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the help.
Another of the same, BLOD problem. Unit is 1 yr 5 mo old. Netgear processed the RMA w/o question.
ReplyDeleteI had version 2 of the switch.
ReplyDeleteI bought two of the GS108v2 from Buy.com about one year ago. Both experienced the same problems described here within one month of each other and operating 24/7. NetGear was a pain in the @ss to get an RMA. The warranty included stated five years and NetGear's offshore tech support wanted to debate it and that it was a one year. So they wanted a copy of the warranty and receipt faxed to them. After doing so, they said the serial number was not included on the receipt. This is seems to be a typical trend in warranty claim repairs.
ReplyDeleteI checked my second GS108 that just stopped working and the two capacitors 1000uf/6.3v were bubbled up on the top. Shame on NetGear.
If you are handy with a soldiering iron, you get get the caps. cheap here (http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=oJBzZY1efWNWd9R6wi4NLw%3d%3d).
For now on, I will probably pay a little more and buy Dell's switches like someone else suggested. I found this blog from Best Buy's website on the product page review of the GS108.
Thanks!
ReplyDeletejust ggld on "Netgear GS108 all leds blinking" and found this blog.
Followed the instructions and the switch is alive again!
I plugged in one more device into my GS108 GigE Switch and a week later had the "all lights blinking" sign of death. Replaced both caps and everything is working fine again. Thanks for the great tip!
ReplyDeletei'm glad to find out this article and the stated solution (bad 6.3v 1000uF capacitors). mine happened last night, all leds blinking on and off. opened the case, sure enough, both capacitors were blown. went to radioshack got the replacement for $4. now everyting works fine.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Can't say I like to peruse blogs but a big thank you to Anonymous and Google for finding this - My switch failed (2 x bad Caps) after just 15 months (out of warrenty) of relativley light use, so I bought a soldering iron etc and actually fixed the thing, something I wouldn't have even looked at without the comments.
ReplyDeleteShame on Netgear, but thanks to Anon for saving me £££££ and making me learn to (de)solder.
Was just about to RMA this. Thanks to the commenter about replacing the caps. Will be dropping by radioshack tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteGreat tip. I'm another victim. NetGear support site was useless. 1/2 hr trip to Radio Shack + 20 minutes and I'm back up. Thanks! (and yes NetGear should be thoroughly embarrassed & apologetic - but they won't be)
ReplyDeleteFascinating. I had bought two of these switches about a year ago and had one DOA. Now the replacement has failed. I'll have to look at the capacitor fix.
ReplyDeleteVery bad design.
I bought two of these at the end of 2006, a month apart, and they failed 18 months later. A month apart from each other.
ReplyDelete20 minutes on the phone with an incomprehensible Indian and I have an RMA number for one of my switches. It's their "policy" only to RMA one device at a time.
These were v2 switches, BTW.
I bought two of these at the end of 2006, and both failed after 18 months.
ReplyDelete20 minutes with netgear support and I have my RMA number.
Perhaps they fixed the capacitors in the replacement switches.
Rob,
ReplyDeleteYou can expect the replacement units to fail too, sooner or later. In my case they just sent me a unit that someone else had RMA'd. It started the Blinking Lights of Death as soon as I plugged it in.
Because of this issue, their unreasonable RMA policy, and because of the utter incompetence Netgear demonstrated with their SNTP implementation (see Flawed Routers Flood University of Wisconsin Internet Time Server), I have placed Netgear on my list of "Do Not Buy" vendors.
I have had this Netgear GS108 (ver2) for 15 months and it went BLOD two weeks ago (same two caps discussed here popped); and planned on throwing it out but did a last minute search prior to its dismissal. I replaced temporarily with a Linksys WRT300N running DD-WRT (btw works extremely well in repeater bridge mode). In order to get the netgear GS108 switch back to normal I ordered some Capacitors (1000UF 16V ELECT PW RADIAL) from Digi-Key and plan to fix myself given the feedback on this blog. I appreciate those who took the time to post; very helpful.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: what really matters with the capacitors? Appears that voltage can be higher but not the farads(1000uf). I am not an EE, so...
Amazing - I have the same problem (except I have not checked the caps).
ReplyDeleteI get the blinking lights of death too - pulling cables out of the router down to three see's it working again, load it up and it may work for a while, then die again.
Has anyone told Netgear of the capacitor fix? Otherwise they will just keep swapping it out with the same caps and the problem will still exist.
Wish I had paid more attention to an auction that offered hp pro-curve switches. I think it's time to see what Dell offers and take the advice of others who have posted before me. Thanks sooooo much for this thread about this problem - i kept thinking it may have been my onboard NIC/cables playing up as well overloading the router - apparently not.
Lets see how good Netgear Australia are for handling this issue.
My GS108 has the same symptom. i opened it up and see two capacitors that are bulging slightly on the top, but they are not "popped". i also checked the output of the little power adapter (which is supposed to be 12vdc) and noticed that it is only about 8vdc. i tried replacing this with another 12vdc adapter but the unit still exhibits the same symptoms. not sure what to conclude.
ReplyDeleteam in the process of contacting netgear, as this thing supposedly has a lifetime warranty...
- Don
Before I comment on the GS108 v2 problem some background:
ReplyDeleteI purchased mine from newegg 2006/10, used it on a 100 Mbps & 1 Gbps LAN until replaced with a GS108T from Directron in 2007/12, put back into service 2008/05 due to home remodel, and see all (100M) LEDs blink 2008/10. I plan on calling Netgear RMA tomorrow. I have not cracked the chassis and will not unless the RMA does not go as planned.
Anyway, from the above comments and another elsewhere I wonder if Netgear just forgot to review the schematic on the v2, or if there was too much copy & paste from v1. The GS108 is a 5V part (per Netgears online PDF manual), and the GS108 v2 is 12V. A 6.3V cap is ok for 5V operation, but marginal for 12V under some circumstances. Although, I would have expected earlier cap failures if there was such a high overvoltage condition.
Sigh, I need to leave more of my tools at work. There are 2 #1 phillips for the chassis, and 4 #1 phillips for the PCB. Opening my unit reveals bulging caps at C4, C21. Both are Teapo (Taiwan, cap factories in China) 1000uF 6.3V 3.5mm-spacing ~8x12mm aluminum electrolytics. The PCB is 21512GS108**1D1.
ReplyDeleteThe caps are filtering 2.5V & 1.0V outputs from the FP1451 (Feeling Tech, Taiwan) DC-DC circuit (12V to 2.5V/1.0V). The original 6.3V is more than enough for 2.5V or 1.0V, so Teapo was probably cheap on that batch caps.
What's interesting is the FP1451 application note (for outputting 5.0V/3.0V vs 2.5V/1.0V) shows a schematic with 220uF 16V caps, but lists 100uF 35V caps for their evaluation board (which appears to follow the schematic). Feeling Tech's input caps are 100uF 35V vs. the 330uF 25V (also Taepo) on the GS108.
Assuming 12V input, does Feeling Tech know something about Teapo cap quality that we don't? Or is the FP1451 outputting absurdly noisy power at 2.5V & 1.0V? I'll just find some quality 1000uF 6.3V caps to replace the low quality Taepos which bulged.
I had the same iisue blinking links if more that 2 devices plugged in.
ReplyDeleteTook it a part 1 blown cap
swapped it with a 16v version and so far so good I'm back in busiiness!!
I've had the same issue with no less than 3 of the GS108s with anywhere between 2 and 6 devices plugged into it. I guess I'll be choosing a different make/model moving forward.
ReplyDeleteThere is no reason to switch to another vendor if you can replace caps yourself. It is still questionable if you are willing to pay the premium for a so-called commercial-grade product.
ReplyDeleteBills of material for premium products can still have varying component manufacturers throughout a product life cycle, and also various distribution sources. Global supply chains which include places such as SE Asia and China provide increased avenues of inserting questionable goods.
That is wacky! I was gandering at this site for troubleshooting hints on tracking down a bad switch and I was assuming one of my 3 24-port units (1 DLink and 2 Netgears) may be going bad. The DLink did the simultaneous blink the other day, hasn't again since a restart. I was just in the server room and noticed I had a GS108 perched ontop of the rack (for the smaller number of gigabit users). No BLOD yet, but have been experiencing network failures and disconnects for about a week now. Outlook users with the "exceeding maximum 32 sessions", and no surfing the web amongst other weird oddities. I am pulling it out of the loop and see if it all improves. If so, it doesn't need the blinking light failure to be an unreliable switch. Note: I do have 100 mixed in with 1000Mbps on the ports.
ReplyDeleteM.K. You seem to be missing the point. Having a bad batch of capacitors is not a big deal - it happens. However, Netgear has been shipping this same bad batch of capacitors for 15 months now and their technical support won't admit that there's a problem. That's dishonest. Also, making me pay for fast turnaround on shipping for a problem that's endemic to the
ReplyDeleteproduct - that's customer-hostile behavior. Generating revenue for a company that treats its customers so poorly is bad business for everyone. Paying $30 extra to get a company that stands by their products - I'm a small business and that's a no-brainer.
Most of the commentators here do not mention when they originally purchased their GS108 units. I think you'd mentioned you received an RMA from Netgear with the same symptoms/problem, but not when.
ReplyDeleteLacking sufficient details I assume 1) bad parts from mid 2007 to late 2007 2) slow/bureaucratic communication within Netgear ENG/RMA/MANUF on build/source problem or ADMIN "sealing" the problem 3) unhappiness with what appears to be typical corporate non-response on problem, and lack of recall.
Yes, the Dell PowerConnect 2708 which you purchased circa 2007/05/30 is now available for 82$ on Dell Small Business on 2008/11/03. So ~30$ more is accurate. But whether Dell "stands by" this product is as yet unknown. That would require teardown of at least one unit, and field failures.
Poor service from a manufacturer is not uncommon. If Netgear is still avoiding acting as of 2008/11 then perhaps consumers should pursue legal action.
M.K. - there's a big difference between building a good product and standing by your product. My company has shipped bad releases in the past. I've also been on the phone at 11pm at night helping customers recover from any problems. I stood by our product.
ReplyDeleteIf Netgear had said "that's a known problem, let us ship you a replacement at our cost", then there wouldn't be an issue. But they didn't. They made my pay for fast turnaround, then they shipped me another unit that had already failed before I pulled it out of the box. Then they didn't want to pay for shipping on that unit either.
On the other hand, if I call Dell support and say something isn't working, they say "We'll Fedex you a new one at no charge and it will be there by 10am tomorrow morning." They stand by their product.
I think you also need to consider the risks involved. Based on our observations, we *know* that Netgear has been shipping faulty equipment, we *know* that they went months (at least) without resolving the problem, we *know* that they are lying to their customers, and we *know* that it will cost a minimum of $50 to get any problems resolved in less than 10 days.
Based on all of this, it's a very poor business decision to buy equipment from a vendor who treats their customers that way, especially when there is so much competition.
I bought 2 1000uF 35v electrolytic capacitors from Radio Shack, $1.59 each for the fix. They're too tall to fit in the case upright but before soldering, I twisted them slightly and laid them on their side against the board. Works fine now. Half hour and three bucks. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteAmazed how many people having the same problem. Thanks for the info; worked out great. Just takes a little research and some basic electronics skill. In this world of throw-away devices I am happy I could fix this myself.
ReplyDeleteRadioshack 35v 1000uF did the trick for me as well not sure what having these giant caps in theere for replacement will do. But they seem to be working fine.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips, I also picked up Radioshack 35v 1000uF. So far so good.
ReplyDeleteSure enough, started having network problems last week. I have a GS108(v2) switch purchased just over a year ago. Pulled the box off the wall tonight and opened 'er up and sure enough, the two caps are "popping" on the top. Will buy new caps from Mouser and replace myself. Great job Netgear. Try to save a buck and lose customer loyalty.
ReplyDeleteBe careful when just buying any off the shelf 1000uF 6.3V cap. The caps used in this power supply circuit are 105 degree C, low ESR. Using a standard 85 degree C electrolytic cap will likely cause your switch to die again and possibly damage the switching regulator on the PCB.
ReplyDeleteI've had two go down now, first one was replaced by Netgear with a larger (MK1 -5V)version which so far has been OK.
ReplyDeleteI did have to argue about the warranty and show receipts which if Netgear had any sense they'd just fix these crocks to stop people being put off by having to argue with some distant call centre. Will make me think twice in future.
This one was reported to me as showing some strange behaviour but of course testing back in my office with just a couple of ports was hard to track down. Did eventually see it stutter and as it was not consistent I suspected heat/power so searched and found this page.
Will source some caps and try, thanks for saving me more time with this issue.
I agree anyone can get a bad component batch but if you sell an item that has a known problem see the swift resolution as a way to keep the customer. Until I found this page I was set to flag netgear as "too much trouble - avoid"
Thanks a million! Swapped out the caps as you described and my switch is back up and running!!!! The caps were barely bulging. If I wasn't looking specifically for them, I would not have noticed it.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteI've had 4-5 Netgear switches die with the blinking LEDs. I had just junked them and replaced them with SMC's SMCGS8 & SMCG5 which are comparable in price, and none of the SMCs have died.
I've quit buying the Netgears.
Quick question, does the voltage matter? RadioShack only carries a 35 Volt and a 50 Volt... which of the two is better?
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot! Switch works.
ReplyDeleteI used 16V types. The problem is: the higher the voltages, the bigger they get. But 16V caps still fit into the case.
Looks like I found what I was looking for, but one thing. Can someone comment on how to get Netgear GS108 Gigabit Switch power supply open?
ReplyDeleteMine is sealed (glued). Do you cut the box open at the seam and use epoxy to seal it again.
I would appreciate a response on this.
Tnx.
just switching power supplies worked for me.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Thank you! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI, too, had a blown cap in my GS108. Armed with the knowlege from this blog, my friends soldering iron and a little guts (I've never done anything like this before), I replaced the cap and the switch is back working. I'm thrilled to save some money and, more importantly, have saved the switch from needlessly filling up a landfill.
So, again, THANKS!
Yes, I did it, too!
ReplyDeleteWith my modest soldering skills, getting the old capacitors out was far more difficult then putting the new ones in.
I used 16V Caps and now my GS108 works again - no more blinking LEDs so far... :-D
Thank you very very much!!!
Yep, another GS108 fixed following the directions on this blog! Thanks folks, so simple and saved me buying another switch.
ReplyDeleteFYI Found the caps in Jaycar (in Australia) (1000uf 16v), cost 90c/ea, whole job took about 20-30min.
Two out of three GS108 i bought 6/2007 have bulging caps. But i won't complain about Netgear, because they raised warranty in germany up to 30 years for these products if bought after 5/2007 :-)
ReplyDeleteToday i got an replacemenr GS108. It is a new version - v3. All caps have been replaced by brown ones. Hope that helps...
ReplyDeleteSame issue as everyone else here but Netgear's US support gave me the gears about swapping the unit. They wanted to charge me $26 for a new power supply since that has only a 2 year warranty. This is despite all the comments at newegg from their tech's that it has a lifetime warranty.
ReplyDeleteThey were convinced it was the power supply but a new one I had lying around made no difference to the problems. DUH!
Geez, this is a $2 power supply. Stop ripping off your customers. I am off to Radio Shack for 2 caps and will solder them in.
No Netgear next time. You have lost a customer for ever.
Yep, one of my gs108's failed recently. I've been having intermitent network issues for a while. replaced the gs108 with a dlink dgs-2208. no more latency experiences. also swapped out one other gs108 with another dlink dgs-2208.
ReplyDeleteseems the gs108 was built rather cheaply - not even sure I want to spend the $2 to repair it,
Opening up my failed GS108, the two green caps don't appear to be bulged - however, when the unit is powered on they make a faint/weak buzzing sound. My working GS108 makes no buzing sound.
ReplyDeleteTHX for this Info, I replaced 'em and its working properly!
ReplyDeleteYou bought a Hitachi hard drive for a server? Dude, you set yourself up for failure. I wouldn't trust them, even at raid 5.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the article though, the info on the switch was most helpful.
Hitachis have always been reliable for me.
Deletehi guys, will the GS108 running well after replacing the capacitors? I am planning to buy 2nd hand one (v2). Just want to be prepared for future issues. The only reason i want GS108 is because it is smaller than other switches
ReplyDeleteFound you guys! This might be of interest. I have a DGS-2208 Ver A1. I think I bought it around 1 1/2 to 2 years ago. I have a fairly large home office network with 2 servers, VOIP and 8 PC's. The switch is one of 3 (the others are 10/100/1000 Netgears.
ReplyDeleteFor the last year I've had very short outages, where suddenly I would see a "Cable unplugged" error" pop up on Win XP, then it would reconnect itself in a few seconds. This progressively got worse, and finally I isolated it to the D-Link hub.
Then it got worse, but I noticed that when I would print to a Laser printer that shared the same APC UPS, I got the "Cable Disconnected" error almost every time.
I thought that was odd, and thought perhaps there was some feedback coming from the UPS, but still odd since the other 2 hubs were not being bothered by this.
I replaced the UPS with a new one, and the problem still did not go away. I then moved the Laser to another outlet in another room and that problem was solved, at least the printing was not shutting down the hub for 10 seconds in a reset.
THEN it started again.....the hub resetting with all lights flashing and then coming back up.
But then today BOOM....all my PCs lose internet connectivity and I go tot he wiring closet and there is the hub with all 8 lights flashing on and off.
I took all the wires out, and turned it off and back on, and nothing, same problem. I tried another power brick and same thing.
That is when I called D-Link to see if what the blinking lights mean, but then they wanted a 35$ one time fee to talk to me.
I said forget it....why bother, I can buy a new hub for 50$!!!
But being curious I scoured the internet and found these postings.
Obviously we have some systemic problems here.
Seeing the comments I opened the hub and inspected it, and NO BULGING Caps! They look perfect. I took the board out checked both sides and no sign of any circuit failure.
QUESTION: Is there a way to test a Cap to see if it has failed even though there is no outward sign of failure?
COMMENT: For all you who are waiting for them to admit to a problem....good luck!
COMMENT 2: Having been a IT Manager for over 15 years, why on earth are some of you folks using this consumer grade components for what appears to be fairly large environments?
COMMENT 3: You have to be really careful nowdays with consumer grade electronics. Black market products in China are everywhere, and they sell you stuff that is supposed to be the real deal and it is a cheap imitation. There was a huge scandal a few years back where the Chinese were selling FAKE top grade nuts and bolts to aircraft companies in the US. The US Airlines thought they were getting a great deal....until the bolts started breaking!
Do yourself a big favor and up the budget a bit and get corporate grade. It is not worth the lost productivity to save a few hundred bucks.
Thanks for the info, and I hope to hear back on the CAP question. Like one other said, not really worth the time to repair given the cost of the item, but I hate throwing out into the junk heap if it can be saved.
I just ordered a 16 port 10/100/1000 with QOS from Netgear. Hope that works better than this one. Rediculous that it lasted only a year or two.
I have gs108 v2 with the same symptoms but unfortunately capacitors were not bulged and neither their replacement helped. Well, it did work for some 2 years, now it will go to the dump.
ReplyDeleteWow that is an unbelievably GOOD run of luck! Just between a media PC, DAW, notebook, and file server, I run through about 4-8 drives a year, and usually a mobo per 2 years or so, a switch router and/or WAP a year, 5 to 10 fans, and/or other peripheral or components!
ReplyDeleteI´ve bought a new GS108Tv2, an enterprise grade desktop switch (smart managed).
ReplyDeleteNetgear writes: MTBF >30 years.
Enterprise/MTBF, these things was a big reason for me to buy this.
After turning on (or reboot) all LEDs are blinking for some minutes.
Anywhen it work normally, without this slows blinking of all LEDs.
But even when they are blinking, all functions and features seem to work normally.
What do you think?
I've also 2 bulging Teapo caps 1000uF/6.3V in my GS108 v2. Will replace them soon. I'm sure it will cure the problem. Must be very poor caps due the fact there's only 1 and 2 volts over the caps. 6.3V should be no problem at these low voltages.
ReplyDeleteTnx for this information.
Henk
Has anyone had caps go bad in a GS108 v3 update? Is it safe to buy this model now?
ReplyDeleteI swapped out the caps on mine and it works great now. Thanks for the help!
ReplyDeleteYep. Same deal here - blinking lights of doom, busted caps - glad I googled, off to the nearest radioshack. Forwarding this post to our IT guy so he never recommends this model to another customer...
ReplyDeleteAdd me to the list... two capacitors from Radio Shack (1000 microfarad 35vDC +85˚C) and it works like a charm. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteGREAT posts from everybody! This is a quality thread worth saving.
ReplyDeleteMy GS108 version 2 got the BLOD today. Opened it up and the caps were fine, not bulged at all.
I've had it on continuously for 3 years, sometimes running 6 devices at a time.
Put a volt meter on the power cord... 10 V
Put it back together and replaced adapter with 12 V and back in business.
I'm wondering if the later model version 2 got better Caps, but still same crappy transformers?
THANKS!
I just pulled a GS108 out of storage, and it's acting all weird, turns out, the Power supply is producing
ReplyDelete8.6 V instead of 12 V, put in a 12V 0.3 Amp Power supply and it looked a lot better, I'll go up and
see if i can buy a 1.5A 12V PS from Radio Shack, otherwise, i'll have to buy a new switch.
I've got a v3 that's been pretty solid so far, but I've only had it a few weeks. I found this comment thread after I made the purchase, but it seems to be working.
ReplyDeleteI also found a v2 that the previous owner of my house left behind. I'm going to try to resurrect it by swapping the caps and using a 1.5A power supply.
I hope the v3 are the resolve, I just bought 4? Now I am nervous. Better locate the Radio Shack for caps, in case its all good.
DeleteHey, thanks for the tips on this. I saw this before in another switch and it reminded me to swap the power supply. Worked great.
ReplyDeleteThank you everyone for the tips! My port lights wouldn't turn on and I heard the faint buzzing. I swapped with a Linksys (lol) 12V 1.5A power supply and the switch came right back up! Saved me $50+! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post.
ReplyDeleteI have a Netgear prosafe GS116 - V1 (16 port version of the prosafe line) switch.
These switches run hot.
My first Power supply died after about 3 years; replaced it.
Now today, got intermittent errors with cable disconnected or certain ip addresses not reachable.
Spend 2 hours isolating the problem and determined it was probably the switch.
After opening the switch (and swapping it out with a dlink that restored everything); I disassembled it and noted that the 820 uF cap was bulging on the C3 slot.
I will see if netgear will replace this under warranty; otherwise, I will do a complete recap when I get the chance.
THe caps were brown KGZ brand capacitors.
due to this awesome thread i was able to get my thrift store ($2.99) GS108v2 switch working! mine wasn't even blinking, the lights would just come on once when the psu was connected and then turn off no matter what i plugged in. i popped off the wonderfully sturdy steel cover and indeed, one of the teapo 1000μF caps was bulging. i swapped it out for a 10v cap off an old motherboard and the switch works great now! i left the other cap because it's still pristine, but if it fails i'll certainly know where to look.
ReplyDeletethanks to everyone (all the way back to 2007 :D) who's commented, it's really awesome to see so many people checking in over the years. keep on fighting that "disposable electronics" plague!
I remembered GS108 had a capacitor problem, and when I was given a GS108 recently (and already have a GS105-I liked the metal 'heft'), did a search and found this blog. Excellent reading!! Okay, dumb question: I am lucky to have a v3 GS108 that probably has the upgraded capacitors, but how do you open the metal case? I didn't remove any rubber feet and am wondering if the metal parts are just glued together.
ReplyDeleteTony4219
I'm back. Never mind. I found the two screws on the back! This is my fault for typing in a darkened room, only lit by the computer screen.
ReplyDeleteGOOD LUCK TO ALL WITH YOUR NETGEAR MINI SWITCHES !!!
Tony4319
I just changed the two capacitors on mines and it is working again. No bulges on the capacitors. I had no lights and noise if you put your ear against the case. Netgear said it is end of life equipment and they would not replace it. I order my capacitors from the link a poster above posted, mouser electronics. Thanks for the helpful information that got my device going again.
ReplyDeleteOh well, I posted that I changed my capacitors and my switch started working. I do not see it posted.
ReplyDeleteAny how it stopped working. I will put it in the garbage.
Dave.
Changed the power supply and it is back again. I will get this one, http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/EPSA120100U-P5P-EJ/T1061-P5P-ND/2235253 to make it last longer.
ReplyDeleteSo I've just got a GS108 v2 and it has the BLOD, but the two Caps mentioned above appear to have already been replaced with upgraded Caps, and have no signs of bulging, but the three 330uF V25 Caps all look like they are bulging on top. Are they likely to be the next ones to go?
ReplyDelete