Problem accessing CE 500

[Abayomi Smith]

Hello Y'all,

I have a problem accessing a recently returned Catalyst Express 500 24 port switch by a client who complained that 3 ports were bad. I intially thought it was a problem of misconfiguration as regards VLAN configuration or some other type of misconfiguration. Unluckily, port 1 is amongst the 3 ports not coming up. I tried resetting the switch to the factory default. During initialization  all the ports start up properly (amber and then green) including the reported faulty ports, which is why I am confused.

However when I plug anything into port 1, the LED doesnt come on and this happens with the two other ports reported bad. When I plug into other ports the LED comes on. The IOS running on it is 12.2(25)SEG4, which I understand is quite recent.I have tried using a windows XP machine and still cant access it. The 500series has reached its EOL and I need to get it working and back to the client ASAP.

I would appreciate any help regarding how to sort this issue.

[Reza Sharifi]

Hi,

Did these 3 ports ever worked before?

Can you make sure that these ports are not admin down?

Reza

[Abayomi Smith]

Hi Reza,

The switch was sold to the client over 6 months ago but they only had a reason to use it a few weeks ago. its been in their store.

I have not been able to access port 1 to check if those ports are not admin down. I get a cable unplugged notification when I plug into those ports (the reported faulty ports) while i get a connection notification in every other port.

[garhall]

Hi,

To get more clues as to why this is happening maybe getting a 'sh tech' from the CE500 would help. To do this you can point your web browser to:

http:///level/15/exec/-/show/tech-support/CR

Replace  with the hostname or IP address of the CE500. 

We can also get more specific outputs if needed.

Thanks,

/gary

[Abayomi Smith]

Dear Gary,

That would have been possible if the switch had an IP Address.

I connected the switch to another switch in the office through the uplink port and used CNA to check.The only things I can see under properties for the CE switch is its hostname, which is switch and model. The IP address column is blank.

[garhall]

Hi Abayomi,

After resetting the switch to factory defaults can you run express setup and configure the device with an IP address? That way we can get access to the CLI. Express setup details is here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/docs/switches/lan/catalystexpress500/release_12.2_25_seg/localized/getting/started/english/9340_chp.html#wp1035284

The reason I ask for access to the CLI is from the GUI we are really limited on debugging tools. The CLI may have some logging that explains why this issue exists, although at this point it does sound more like a hardware failure than anything else.

Let me know if you can run Express setup and get the device configured with an IP address. Then we can use any port on the CE500 (make sure we use vlan 1 only for now) to connect using a PC with IP address in the same subnet.

HTH

/gary

[Abayomi Smith]

Dear Gary,

On checking further, I noticed that after the switch has started up and the system LED is on green (steady) the LED on port 1 blinks amber like once in every five secs. This happens when i restart the switch and just leave it to run through initialization without pressing setup.

Do you have any idea of what this indicates? I think we may be dealing with a hardware failure on our hands.

I still cant run express setup or confiure an IP address on it. What happens when I press setup, wait for all the LED's to go amber before releasing it is that the after initialization, the system LED stays on amber (steady) and the Setup and port 1 LED blinks green permanently. I would like to know the type of error this indicates.

[firestormnet]

Hi,

I have a similar problem. Some ports of the switch are not working. The yellow ALERT light is on. I can't access to the switch using a browser. What are the other ways to login to the switch? Thanks

Regards,