Strange MicroSemi PDS-208 behavior

[johnpoz]

@lewis said in Strange MicroSemi PDS-208 behavior:

Microsemi has layer two/three capabilities.

Not per the feature set.. on the website

https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/poe-switches/4996-pds-208g#overview

Features:

240 W of full-power PoE (IEEE 802.3at); 8 ports (30 W per port)
Extra power per port - any individual port can go up to 72 W
Fanless design - silent operation and enhanced reliability
IEEE 802.3az energy-efficient-PoE 4-pair solution
Data rates of 10/100/1000 Mbps
**Layer 2 switch** - including 802.1Q-based VLANs enables segmentation of networks for improved performance and security
Configuration and monitoring - Web management and SNMP

Nor anything in the manual that I saw, and your not tagging anything..

This switch is trying to route traffic

No it isn't that is for damn sure - and where exactly would it be routing anything that are all on the same network.

Dude cut your losses with this POS would be my advice.

Setting an IP on the default vlan, and connecting devices to this network should take all of 30 seconds to setup on any other switch.. Every vlan capable switch I have ever worked with - really since there has been switches.. The default vlan is one, and they are just really dumb switches out of the box... All the ports are in vlan 1, untagged and you plug something into a port, and plug something into another port and they are on the same layer 2.. Regardless of what IP might be on the switch for management. Only once you start doing some creation of vlans and putting ports in different vlans do they become "smart" and vlan aware really..

Why would it "route" anything unless it was sent to its IP as the gateway of the device, the devices on a network do not send traffic to a gateway or their default gateway unless the IP they are trying to talk to is on some other network then what their ip and mask tells them they are on... If the IP is on their network, they arp for it.. If they do not get an response then it just fails, they don't say oh let me send that to my gateway anyway, etc. The only way that switch could route, even if it could would be if the traffic was sent to its mac address for its IP, with a destination of where the client is trying to go.. And the client isn't going to be doing that if the IP its trying to talk to is on its same network.. So even if the switch "could" route - which it can't per the website stating its a layer 2 switch - it wouldn't be attempting to route anything anyway.

Maybe they have some other model that can do layer 2 and or 3.. My sg300 can be in layer 2 or 3 mode. Mine is currently in layer 3 mode - but its not doing any routing - just using its layer 2 features..

[lewis]

What can I say, the seller is too busy to help me. He thinks I'm doing something wrong which is what I thought also when I started. At this point, he thinks all of us have no idea what we're doing. I've asked him to look at the post but he says he's done talking with me.

I even mentioned at some point 'maybe there's something you're not telling me' which he of course took offense to. It's a fact on ebay. Sellers often pretend they don't know that something is wrong with the stuff they sell. I've had it happen so many times.

I wanted an isolated PoE setup and I certainly got one LOL.

It's not a big deal, I got these super cheap but brand new out of the box, was excited to think I got such an amazing deal. Not worth sending back.

Hoping someone with Microsemi experience will see this post at some point and chime in. I think we all would love to know what this is all about.

[johnpoz]

@lewis said in Strange MicroSemi PDS-208 behavior:

I've had it happen so many times.

They why do you continue to buy crap there? Just buy a name brand switch, one that you can actually get support if need be, etc. Or return if it doesn't work.

[lewis]

What do you mean 'continue'? :).

For production stuff, it's always name brands but I've also learned about new brands by buying them used or cheap on eBay for example.

In this case, I wanted to separate PoE stuff that's currently on Cisco PoE switches since I need those for something else.

There's lots of good used stuff, name brands on eBay and these looked like a good bargain. Happens now and then.

[lewis]

To close this, I finally gave up on these and will not spend any more time on them. It's a shame since I got them for $25.00 each including shipping. I can understand why the seller could care less to help :).

On to better things :).

[FSC830]

If I could find one of these boxes for that price I would spent the money, just to investigate in such a weird issue to still curiosity .
But as far I have seen, they are not sold in EU.
And I have found them only with a price several times higher than yours.

Regards

[lewis]

@fsc830 Yes, I thought it was a heck of a deal until all this. Brand new in the box, they act this way. Maybe they have a messed up firmware or something.
Maybe the seller knows but could care less. He added that forums are not a good place to get technical info LOL. I trust the input I got here more than anything he has to say.

Anything you buy on ebay always come with 'buyer beware' but I've had more good luck than bad so still buy there sometimes.

[johnpoz]

@lewis said in Strange MicroSemi PDS-208 behavior:

Brand new in the box

For $25 which included the shipping cost? Whats the saying when something sounds too good to be true ;) heheh

Does he still have some? For $25 I might order one to play with.. I did that in the past for the cheap like 25$ range tplink that user(s) were having issue with..

Issue was tplink in their infinite wisdom of vlans and network security, thought it was a ok to not to be able to remove vlan 1 from any port. So no matter what vlan 1 traffic goes too every port, even when you put another port in some other vlan..

Took them like 2 years or something to fix it, there are threads on their own forums with people complaining, and for long time they were saying that was normal.. They finally fixed it with a firmware upgrade, but they didn't back port it to previous hardware versions. But someone here figured out you could load the v3 hardware firmware onto v2 hardware, now the switch says its v3 hardware ;) I still have it on shelf I could fire it up and show that ;)

I believe someone else here fixed the firmware on their own to allow for removal of vlan 1 from ports you wanted to put into a different vlan.. Ever since that whole debacle I would recommend staying away from that whole line - clearly they don't actually understand vlans ;) If you want port X to be in vlan B, you need to be able to remove other vlans from that port, even the default vlan 1..

And even when they did fix it, they didn't provide the firmware for users of previous hardware versions.. Which is bad support!

The ebay seller prob got them for like a buck each, when the company figured out the switches wouldn't talk to other switches - hehe and dumped the whole lot for some ridiculous low cost..

edit: oh yeah another thing wrong with them, which was more just a cosmetic issue, is when you tagged vlans on a port - the counters would list tagged packets as errors heheh in the interface counters.. I don't recall if the firmware fixed that issue. But at least they fix the vlan 1 problem - I would say try contacting the company direct - but the link for support on their website doesn't even load heheh

Lessons learned, at least it was a low cost lesson other than time.. 50 bucks or so is much better than a couple of hundred..

[lewis]

The seller since raised the price. Isn't he setting himself up for complaints from the next unsuspecting buyers?

I used to buy a lot of stuff from that site. It was a good way to learn about all kinds of hardware. I'd say a third of the stuff I bought was 'too good to be true' while the rest was market price. Much of the cheap stuff turned out the seller had no idea what they were selling or didn't know how to fix/use it. Rarely was it all out junk, just not what they described.

For that price, it was worth trying these. They can still be used in a closed stand alone network which is fine.

[daduls]

@lewis said in Strange MicroSemi PDS-208 behavior:

Isn't he setting himself up for complaints from the next unsuspecting buyers?

How will anyone know the issue? Have you left feedback on the switches?

[lewis]

@daduls I rarely leave feedback and it just leads to bad feedback from the seller. No point.