Off topic, Power Over Ethernet.

bulletin blues

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Mar 2003
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Totally off topic, but strange observation.

I purchased a few cisco ethernet switches off of ebay some years ago.
They are part of a home lab,

At the time, I realized that some had Power Over Ethernet.

I honestly didn't pay that much attention, but had intended on figuring out how to hook up some VOIP cisco phones, which required POE.

Unfortunately, my home lab gets moved around a lot. Kitchen to basement to office to garage, etc.

I lost the "wall wart" power adapters for one of the switches, I know it's somewhere around here, in one of the bins or boxes, labeled clearly, I just can't locate it.

This was kind of preventing me from hooking up a new lab setup, because I couldn't find the adapter to turn on the switch.

I decided to hook up all the Ethernet cables to get a head start until I found the adapter.

What is weird is, when I hooked up the cat 5 cables, the switch started showing an error code in the status lights, with a pattern of flashing status l.e.d's.

There is no power applied to the switch. Obviously it is seeing the POE power from another switch, which is flashing the indicators, but as an electrical type person, when I see flashing lights, I assume there is power going to the switch.

Be aware, that if you see a POE switch flashing error codes, don't assume, well, the circuit breaker isn't tripped. The flashing code may indeed be telling you that the circuit breaker is tripped, and there is no power.
 
Last edited:
When a cisco switch that has poe capability and the port has a flashing light it could mean several things.
1. poe is disabled for that port.
2. the switch has detected a problem with the port / device connected to it and is turned off.
3. the port is an analog port for a touch tone push dial phone (cordless) and is incorrectly connected to something.
it has been several years since i programmed cisco switches, but this is what i remember.
james
 

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