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Forum Discussion

burchbri's avatar
burchbri
Aspirant
Apr 19, 2018
Solved

GS108Ev3 firmware upgrade failed and cannot factory reset

I have three of these switches, which have been running with firmware 2.00.08 firmware for 2 years. I upgraded each of them with the web gui under linux from the older as-shipped firmware. Recently, ...
Firmware
Troubleshooting
  • burchbri's avatar
    burchbri
    May 02, 2018

    Thanks, Dane. I will resist the temptation to open the case. I will just assume the unit is "bricked".

     

    I will follow your advice and try to obtain a replacement under the lifetime warranty.

     

    Regards,

     

    Brian

burchbri's avatar
burchbri
Aspirant
Apr 27, 2018

Thanks very much for your reassuring reply, DaneA. I will follow your advice and report the defective hardware early next week.

 

I have worked on quite a few of this kind of "lightweight" embedded system over the years. With those other devices I have been able to open the outer case and find a serial port 3-pin connector. By hanging a serial-USB dongle off the pins and connecting a terminal emulator, I can usually catch the bootloader and break into a busybox session. That allows me to edit the bootloader environment file and restore a "bricked" device to factory defaults. I have not opened the case of my GS108Ev3 to preserve its lifetime warranty. However, if I were to look at the motherboard, would I find a serial interface and be able to catch the bootloader messages?

DaneA's avatar
DaneA
NETGEAR Employee Retired
May 01, 2018

burchbri,

 

I have not opened the case of my GS108Ev3 to preserve its lifetime warranty. However, if I were to look at the motherboard, would I find a serial interface and be able to catch the bootloader messages?

I do not have any idea if there is a serial interface in the motherboard because I have never opened the metal case of any GS108Ev3 switch as well as any other switches. 

 

 

Regards,

 

DaneA

NETGEAR Community Team

  • burchbri's avatar
    burchbri
    Aspirant
    May 02, 2018

    Thanks, Dane. I will resist the temptation to open the case. I will just assume the unit is "bricked".

     

    I will follow your advice and try to obtain a replacement under the lifetime warranty.

     

    Regards,

     

    Brian

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