WS-12-400-AC Overheating?

[admin@aligntec.net]

We have seen an odd reboot behavior on one of our WS-12-400-AC switches in the last two days. The entire site goes offline and when it comes back up within 10 minutes, all devices connected to the switch show they have rebooted as well as the switch in the log. I am wondering if this is a possible case of overheating? I have attached some screenshots of data just after the reboot and monitoring the previous 6 hours.

You can see the switch ran for several hours today at full fan and then went offline. The screenshot of the temps after it came back on line look fairly warm, but I have seen other Netonix switches operate with daily CPU temps of over 200 degrees for years. Any ideas on how to verify our issue is indeed overheating would be great.

[admin@aligntec.net]

Bummed we haven't had any feedback on this yet. We will be replacing the switch to verify it is the root concern on this daily unwanted reboot issue.

[admin@aligntec.net]

We replaced this unit with a new unit on 7/17/2020 and under the same thermal conditions the new switch does not display the odd reboot behavior. The failing switch was purchased in February of 2018 and deployed in January of 2019. According to your new RMA procedure, I would not be able to send this switch back for repair at our cost. We have utilized your repair process in the past and been very pleased with your quality of work. I of course understand growth and your inability to continue to support customer repairs due to the current pandemic and the need for an efficient labor force. The new RMA procedure and lack of customer paid repairs on switches older than 2 years, regardless of time in the field did take me by surprise.

We certainly love your products and wish your company the best through this time of growth and hope that one day you have the resources to again accept older switches for customer paid repair.

[sirhc]

Did you happen to notice the switch was running v1.5.0 which there have been MANY bugs fixed that could be causing the reboots.

Anytime you have an issue the first thing you should do is upgrade the firmware to the current version.

Now since v1.5.0 there were several security patches which would allow hackers or malware to infect the unit through a security hole in the web server which is a package we plug in and did not write.

Once a unit is compromised you MUST power on factory default it as the security hole would allow the hacker to install files to the flash. Now the hack did NOT compromise the access to passwords and such for 1 the password is stored encrypted format [hashed] in the config file.

So there is probably not anything wrong with the unit at "first glance" however that unit was manufactured prior to 4/2019 which is when we made significant changes to the design to better protect the unit from poor grounding / ground current loops / ground current damage.

There are situations where ground current can cause a reboot but my guess is this unit simply need a firmware upgrade? One issue fixed since v1.5.0 was a memory hole which would consume memory over time if certain things were configured which in the end would result in a reboot.

So take it with a grain of salt but ANYTIME you have an issue STEP 1 should be to upgrade the firmware and possibly do a POWER ON FACTORY DEFAULT and re set it up to deal with corrupted config and or compromised unit in the case of running a firmware that is YEARS OUT OF DATE.

So look, I have been a WISP for 22+ years and it is NORMAL practice to upgrade firmware on a somewhat regular basis and for sure it is one of the first things I do when I have an issue.

[admin@aligntec.net]

Thanks for the feedback Chris. I apologize for not noting in the post that the very first thing I did was upgrade the firmware to v1.5.5 and the same behavior was noted. As you stated this is and should be reflex when any issue is noted. I did not factory default it, because that requires a visit to the site, at which point I replaced it with a new unit. Either way I'm all good, thanks again for the feedback. I don't trust this unit any longer for field locations. It is moving to the test bed.