"Blinking lights of death" ? Netgear Switch GS108

[Aldo Foot]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 7:23 PM, Robert L Cochran
<cochranb at speakeasy.net> wrote:
> Has the device firmware been pharmed or simply partly flashed and then a
> power failure struck?
>
> If you would like to donate the unit to me, I'll try to find the time to
> take a look at it in the next few months. I'm still very much an amateur,
> and I'd like to try analyzing why the unit is not working and see if I can
> fix it. This assumes physical damage to the circuit board of some sort.
<...snip....>
>> The only way to be sure it is capacitor plague is to gut the unit and look
>> at the PC board. If you look at the capacitors in it, and one or two are
>> slightly bulged, or have black stuff that looks to be leaking from the
>> bottoms, the device is dead, and should be replaced, unless you are the
>> hacky type and change out the cap's or harvest the good parts off the corpse
>> of the old switch.
>>
>>
>> ~Seann

The unit has a blown capacitor, bulged and brown matter around it. Also there is
a white-ish powder under the PCB. It looks dirty. There is corrosion.
Not sure it's
worth fixing. It went on for well over a year working perfectly in a
well ventilated
room. The unit is for a server at my workplace, so they will replace it.
Many years ago, I used to make and fix network cards and switches at some
company, so I'll give it a shot myself at fixing this one just for kicks.

I very much appreciate your offer to fix this thing --even though there was no
warranty implied. :-)

Now, I've got to get a more reliable unit to last longer.
~af