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XS748T-100NES - unable to disable/switch off Green Ethernet?
Hi,
We recently starting to endeavour into the 10GBe roam, replacing our existing GS752TSB, GS752TP's etc.
The likely candidate was looking to be the XS748T-100NES, sourced locally, all but quite a steep price but then 52x ports of 10GBe, it would suit our needs for quite some time.
I hoped.
Sadly, we ran into several snags, and not wanting to have a lengthy list, one issue made me curious and I have contacted Support.
Unfortunately, that did not provide us any answers other then requesting us to send several screenshots of a section which you can not change/modify.
I refering to the Green Ethernet section of the XS748T-100NES, you can not turn it off! (so it appears?)
You aslso can not modifiy it.
The GUI/Help is quite clear in that arena;
You can not disable Green Ethernet mode, those buttons were all greyed-out (and the GUI/Help confirmed you can not indeed turn off Green Ethernet)
The only option you can change was the EEE mode.
Granted, we were using (short?) brand new CAT6 cables, 2 or 3 meters in length, as we are in testing- and procurement-mode.
We had installed the v6.5.1.51 firmware, althoguh the Release Notes were 0 bytes.
We have a requirement to be disable Green Ethernet as that mode interferes with the WOL (1GBe) equipment that alsi need to be connected to that same switch (too). Green Ethernet will switch off the port completely. blocking WOL fucntionality on 1Gbe connections.
For us that was a deal-breaker so we returned the unit only after a few days (and late-night endeavours trying to get things to work) and cancel our procurements, now looking into different vendors.
Which is sad, as we "standerdized" for so many years on NetGear but this product (and their Support) was a major letdown to us.
Is indeed true that the XS748T-100NES's Green Ethernet function(s) can not be disabled?
The other day, I received the S3300-52X GS752TX, that also has Green Ethernet, but can (and is by default) disabled.
Hope I'm wrong but if not, the XS748T-100NES has no place within our infrastructure.
A big Thank You for anybody who can provide some constructive feedback and information!
schumaku
Thank you so much for your elaborate response, really appreciated!For most I agree with your below, however, in this instance we are using enterprise NAS-ses and I noticed the XS748T, whilst WOL was (already) turned-on at the NAS-side, turned-off the ports completely and thus "disabling" the WOL functionality inadvertenly, so it seemed.
Could very well be indeed the aforementioned Fast Ethernet-mode on the NAS side, that is unfortunately not something documented on our side as far as I was able to find out.
The fact you can't influence that from the XS748T side, is thus a deal-breaker for us. Unfortunately.
(and the XS748T also didn't support UTP nor auto-MDI/MDX for our environment monitors did not help either)
Something we never ever encountered before with our (plenty!) other NetGear switches.So, we are not refering to typical (Windows) OS- (and driver-) challenges in our instance.
(but I'm aware of such, although noticed something similar with our Mac infrastructure too)
But the mere fact you can't influence/set the "Green Ethernet" related settings from the XS748T is I believe a poor choice.
I can understand that NetGear made that concious choice to be more cost-effective but it does, in my humble opinion, also reduce the "downwards compatibilty" of the XS748T in an existing (Netgear) environment as we found out the hard way, so to speak.
The XS748T was readely available from our suppliers (also in quantity) and price-wise was already a bit steep-ish.
The M4300-48X is something we may look into altough our budget is finite, and indeed quite more expensive (almost double the price).
Again, thank you so much, I can understand Netgear's position but some of the choices made regarding the function(s) of the XS748T make it quite challenging and very unfortunate.
But that is what it is, glad we could return our unit and cancel the orders.
7 Replies
Welcome to the community! :)
Is indeed true that the XS748T-100NES's Green Ethernet function(s) can not be disabled?
For the Green Ethernet Configuration of the XS748T switch, both Auto Power Down mode and Short Cable mode are always enabled and cannot be disabled. However, you can either enable or disable the EEE Mode. As reference, kindly read page 55-56 of the XS748T user manual here.
Regards,
DaneA
NETGEAR Community Team
Thanks, I appreciate your welcome!
Allow me to thank you for taking the efforts to reply to my query, much obliged!
I'm a wee bit dazzled why with this particular XS748T model you can not disable/change the Green Ethernet-settings, and thus always have the Auto Power Down mode enabled.
A reason I can think off why Green Ethernet can not be turned-off is to avoid heat pressure of the switch, perhaps?
But I could be wrong and would welcome an explanation..Still, not being able to change it, is not the right choice in this instance. I strongly believe.
I do believe it should be up to the individual customer to opt-in or opt-out for using Green Ethernet or not.
In our situation it caused so many issues and grievances, we cancelled our order for more units and returned the unit we bought.
Bottom-line: due to this simple fact, I believe to be a serious ommission, NetGear just lost a substantial amount of business for 3000 euro's per switch.As stated we are, more-or-less, standerdized on NetGear, and yes, Green Ethernet has been a "thang" with NetGear for a long time ongoing.
But where applicable, I was able to turn it off where needed. (and left it alone, often default on, where possible).
So, it is not we are not acustomed to Green Ethernet, and we welcome such capabilities.
But not being able to influence it, is a big No No.
We are lloking into alternatives, and to avoid a rip-and-replace off all our NetGear, I'm currently looking into the NetGear XS724EM, provided that does allow for the configuration of the Green Ethernet settings.
Otherwise we will move away from NetGear and that would be sad times after so many years..Neither Auto Power Power Down nor Short Cable Mode does interfere in any way with WoL, here is why:
When the port link is down (cable disconnected, or peer adapter completely powered off), the PHY automatically goes completely down for a very short short period, to be waked up again in in auto-negotiation mode for checking the link pulses. As long as there are no link pulses, it won't power up. An Ethernet adapter will - in normal operations, and awaiting WoL - will send link pulses, the Ethernet link will be up and active. otherwise, the magic packet has no transport media at all... True is that some adapters run on lower link rates while in WoL mode, eg. only retain a Fast Ethernet (100 Mb/s) link. Perfectly sufficient, and requiring less power. If the link signals would go away, the switch has no reason to keep the link up, and the process does start above again.If the link is up, and a short cable is detected, the Shot Cable Mode comes into play. It does not make sense to send full power into the short cable for various reasons. Either way, also in short cable mode with the reduced power levels, the pulses will go through, and the link as well as the connection can be established and retained.The switch does - even with the green features enabled - not power down a port as long as the link is established.For some years, especially since Windows 10, there were a lot of fancy discussions and ideas when WoL works, and when not... Think different power status of a Windows 10 system, or for the sake also a decent Windows server. The control of the complete "off" system is up to the BIOS where there are controls for WoL enable/disable and so on. For any other power level, Windows is at the controls, hibernate, hybrid sleep, sleep, ... Lots of crappy drivers are in the field, and often Microsoft does by far not provide something decent on this level, many older driver simply suffer under various power states.There are lengthy discussions and explanations on working and non-working Windows 10 WoL on different systems all over in the net - completely independent of the switch.The XS728T and XS748T were from the first generation of very affordable 10G switch lines (after the initial XS712Tv1), some features were minimized, so for example the PHY chips are very basic, and do for example not support 10Mb/s Ethernet, among a few other details. When I remember right, the always-on Green Ethernet or the lack of control for it is one of these simplifications. The configuration limitations ref. are clearly documented in the user manual.Netgear has of course fully fledged 10G switches with complete controls in this area, but they come with a higher price tag, like the M4300-48X for example.The XS724EM does strictly stick with EEE, this can be disabled on a global base.
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