So, for quite some time, I was wondering about what the causes of my NETGEAR GS108Tv2 smart switch hanging could be. For a long time, I knew that the hanging tended to happen more when people were plugging in and unplugging cables. After thinking about this and studying a bit about CMOS logic more, I came to a few conclusions:
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The smart switch does not like “floating” connections on ports. Ideally, all 8 conductors should be wired to a cable. Using a cable with less than 8 conductors is likely to cause trouble due to the “floating” connections.
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Indeed, it is static electricity that can cause the smart switch to hang. Furthermore, some laptops don’t have good grounding.
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The DC power jack lacking a ground connection is indeed part of the problem. For some people who have been having trouble with similar NETGEAR switches out in the field, attaching a ground point to the case solved the problem. Good thing the smart switch comes with a metal case.
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Some cheap PHY Ethernet ICs lack adequate electrostatic discharge protections. It’s likely that cheaper models may forgo proper ESD as a cost saving measure.
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You might be able to add ESD protection on the outside of your smart switch by placing a “tranzorb” style device right at the jack input.
20190128/DuckDuckGo network switch sensitive to electrostatic discharge
20190128/DuckDuckGo netgear network switch sensitive to electrostatic discharge
20190128/DuckDuckGo netgear network switch ethernet sensitive to electrostatic discharge
20190128/DuckDuckGo netgear network switch ethernet sensitive to static electricity
Confirmed, here on Reddit that sensitivity to electrostatic discharge is indeed a problem out in the field on NETGEAR switches that use a DC input power jack without a ground.
20190128/https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/27vq6i/does_you_use_the_grounding_points_on_your/
This StackExchange was a great resource for details on some internal switch components on the market that are not well designed for static electricity.
20190128/https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/9722/what-is-the-most-common-way-ethernet-ports-experience-harware-failure 20190128/