Hello Netters,
I hope someone can help me. It has been a long day (and night) and I cannot think of anything else I can do to fix our network problem.
In our small business setup, a DSL modem is connected to a Linksys router. The linksys router is connected to a 16-port Linksys switch. Some ports are used direcly by some computers. Other ports are connected to some other 5-port switches (through a patch panel).
Although we don't have UPS anywhere, we have surge protectors for all of our electrical connections.
It all started this afternoon. Looks like there was some kind of electrical surge. Some of our computers just rebooted themselves.
After a couple of hours we started seeing this problem. Our 16-port switch just stops communicating. We cannot even ping machines on the neighboring ports.
If I unplug the power cable on the switch and plug it back again, things work okay for a couple of minutes. After that, once again the switch stops communicating.
Suspecting that the 16-port switch has a problem, we replaced the switch with a newly purchased 16-port switch. However, the problem seems to be still there.
Can someone please suggest us what the problem could be?
One theory I have is that some device that is connected to the switch (either the network card on the computers or one of the 5-port switches have started sending some wrong signals to the main switch, thereby messing it up. Is this possible? If so, is there a quick way to identify the culprit?
Thank you in advance for your help. Our network will be up for another couple of minutes, giving me a chance to post this message.
Regards, Pradeep