ControlNet Crash - Anyone had this happen before?

Yesterday we had someone plug an ethernet cable into the RJ45 connector of a 1756-CNB/D ControlNet card by mistake. The other end was connected to the laptop. Upon plugging the cable into the ControlNet card the processor faulted and the machine shut down. I connected to the processor thru the ControlNet card and redownloaded the program, as symptoms seemed to indicate a corrupt program (no run light on the processor thought the run key was switched to run, no fault light either). The Logix5000 software showed told me I needed to reflash the firmware, I did that and the software indicated it was being accopmlished. I then downloaded the program which the software told me was being accomplished. When I went to put the program back into run mode (the key switch was now in remote) the software told me that the program had gone to run mode but the run light did not come on. Turning the switch to run mode made the run mode light come on, but the I/O light was still flashing (flex I/O thru the ControlNet card) but the software showed me that all the I/O was happy.

After scratching my head and thinking something was not right about the comms between the laptop and the PLC I disconnected from the I/O ControlNet card and connected to the PanelView ControlNet card. I The software asked me to update the firmware once more, which I did, and then downloaded the program again. As soon as I told the PLC to go to run the subsystem this processor control started up, but the overall machine remained shutdown.

The ControlNet card the person had plugged into was one that talks to another PLC. That PLC had corrupted its program and needed a fresh program download to come on line again.

My question: Has anyone else ever seen a ControlNet system crash due to someone connecting ethernet into its RJ45 port? Has anyone ever seen a ControlNet problem spread into processors along the network? If this is a problem not some aligning of the stars sort of fluke, does anyone have a procedure implemented that prevents people from making this mistake?

We had the same thing happen to us. It corrupted the CNB and we had to reload the program into the processor. We phoned Rockwell about this and they said that it could happen. We have just taped over the RJ45 connectors on the cards. I love the ControlLogix, but I still do not understand why Rockwell would put a RJ45 plug, which would mean ethernet to someone who does not know better, on the front of a ControlNet card.

We had a meeting yesterday and it was decided that we would tape over the RJ45's also, and make it a rule that you only go into the processor using ethernet. All I could find on the website was that this could degrade network performance or make the network not work, I didn't see anything that stated it could corrupt cards and programs. I wish they would make that port a different connector also - that was a bad choice to use such an ethernet style connector in a place that could cause such problems.