Ethernet switch failing?

[Kouch]

Hello,
I have a netgear 5 port ethernet switch I am using to communicate over ethernet with network of computers. The "main" computer is using dhcp to assign IPs to all of the slave computers. The switch is powered by a surge protector. I have had to replace 3 of these switches, any ideas why (other than power surge) these switches wouldbe failing so frequently?

 

[Hawkeye22]

Are these the little dark blue ones with a metal case. If so, I have had a couple of these go bad on me too. It's possible that netgear was having a quality control issue. I did notice that these switches ran hot, at least hotter than you would expect a switch to, so it may be a heat related problem too.

 

[Kouch]

Yes! I just found out that these are now End Of Life, due to their failure rate. Most people now recommend the f108 (similar, only 8 port instead of 5).

Turns out, I did not have a hardware issue at all...I had 2 instances of a DHCP Server running. Therefore my network was all jammed up. Solution: Uninstall one of the Servers, there should have never been more than one anyway.

The fact that I had two of these switches fail before my other network issues was purely conicedental. Either way I would never recommend one of these (Netgear f105).

Anyway, thanks for the input.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Glad you got it solved, and yes, you should never have more than one DHCP server on the network.