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Re: GS116eV2 hardware info needed

Mousefinger
Aspirant

GS116eV2 hardware info needed

Dear community, currently I am trying to fix a broken GS116eV2 and am having trouble getting the technical data I need to analyze the fault more closely. I bought it used so I have no purchase receipt or other warranty entitlement, so I'm trying to fix it myself. The issue is that Power lights up normally, but all lights of the 8 rightmost ports are lit dimly, while all lights of the 8 left-side ports stay completely dark. Specificly, I need to know which ICs are mounted on the board (model / designations) so I can get datasheets for them. The problem is that the main ICs (U5, U6 and U7, which are the CPU and PHYs) have tiny heat sinks glued on (quite sloppily, which may or may not have contributed to the fault). I would like to avoid trying to pry these off the chips because there is no 100% safe way of doing so and I don't want to add mechanical damage to the issues. It would also help if you could tell me the intended voltages for the two DC/DC converters on the board (U4 and U11), as well as the required regulation quality / tolerance. Originally, I assumed an electryolytic capacitor to be defective, but it turns out that in the HW v2 these have been replaced by MLCCs and thus should not be prone to drying / leakage. The only electrolytic cap left is a general, 220µF / 25V type for stabilizing the input voltage, which is fully functional as expected. So, I need to dig in further. I see three possible reasons: 1) one or more of U5/6/7 are damaged, preventing the remaining two from working 2) U11 may be outputting a wrong voltage or failing proper regulation (there are periodic rectangular 100mV drops on that line that look like something is trying to come up but fails). 3) the flash (U3, MX253206e) has flipped one or more bits, i.e., damaged firmware Thanks for reading and I hope someone can provide this info!
Model: GS116Ev2|ProSafe Plus 16 ports gigabits switch
Message 1 of 6
schumaku
Guru

Re: GS116eV2 hardware info needed

Netgear does not provide internals or hardware service information.

Message 2 of 6
Mousefinger
Aspirant

Re: GS116eV2 hardware info needed

Well, that is very sad, as these things certainly are no "business secrets" (unless Netgear truly expects their competitors to not be able to buy and open up one of these units). At the very least, I expect that the design is basicly the reference implementation. I suppose the bad security track record of Netgear isn't the only reason why serious networking professionals keep recommending other brands. Anyway, maybe Netgear doesn't want to help, but maybe some helpful community member does? Admittedly, I don't have high hopes on that, given that I found a 2016 thread where somebody asked about something as simple as what the markings on U4 (one of the two switching regulators) are. I would have replied to it because I literally only had to look at the IC, but it has been closed to further comments, so anyone else having the same issue will never receive the info unless they find this thread: it is "IAE JJ".
Message 3 of 6
schumaku
Guru

Re: GS116eV2 hardware info needed


@Mousefinger wrote:
I suppose the bad security track record of Netgear isn't the only reason why serious networking professionals keep recommending other brands.

Not sure what relation this has to the subject. Laundry talk here, here we come.  What security track record, which products? Serious networking professionals rarely require SMD soldering equipment. Instead, we have hardware maintenance contracts, or manage our and the customer infrastructure devices product lifetime warranty, .... That's why you rarely find queries  Which brand in this market does offer hardware service manuals down to the component level please? Cisco? Oh you might not know that all these consumer, SOHO, and SMB products (Cisco's) are made by ODMs nowadays. Why do I mention Cisco? Nobody will be typically fired because they bought Cisco equipment. Appears the Netgear GS116Ev2 is still considered secure enough to spend some effort on it - so a lot of noise for nothing.

 


@Mousefinger wrote:
I would have replied to it because I literally only had to look at the IC, but it has been closed to further comments, so anyone else having the same issue will never receive the info unless they find this thread: it is "IAE JJ".

And what exactly is this chip with the IAE JJ marking please? As I'm still maintaining certain services legacy hardware for DEC PDPs, VAX, and DEC (HP) Alpha systems - so some understanding which end of the soldering station iron is the hot one - I'm keen to know. 

 

 

 

Message 4 of 6
Mousefinger
Aspirant

Re: GS116eV2 hardware info needed

Does ignoring suspicious activity on port 32764 for 11 (ELEVEN) years, and then hiding it instead of closing it sound familiar to you? If not, it might be interesting to read up on it. Granted, others were also bitten by that SerComm backdoor. Still, only Netgear has (to my knowledge anyway) had reports on it on their forums but chose to ignore them. https://web.archive.org/web/20140424094025/http://www.netgear-forum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=61... This ties in with the subject in so far that failing to disclose even the most trivial bits of information doesn't create additional trust. Maybe it's laundry talk to you, and maybe it really is, but let's just say I continue to not be impressed. I don't suppose you truly do need me to explain to you the difference between an internet router and an internal switch, security-wise, yes? Given that the switch also does allow turning off the (now deprecated) management protocol, it should be as secure as a web-administered switch gets (assuming one is using https and restricts management to certain ports). Yes, Network pros usually have support contracts, indeed. And they indeed use Cisco, or maybe HP (formerly 3Com), at least where I have had the opportunity of talking to them. Thus, obviously, they would not bother with low-level maintenance unless it's ancient equipment. Which the GS is not, meaning that I am not a networking pro, nor do I consider myself one (in case you were trying to imply that I did). So, maybe that is the reason why I am not seeing the rationale behind not sharing this info? Would there be additional legal issues Netgear would have to face if they did tell? I know that some court rulings tend to be, mildly spoken, "quite interesting", so maybe that is a problem? Anyway, the function of the IAE JJ will be immediately apparent upon seeing it's surrounding configuration on the actual PCB if you know your way around electronics - and from what you write, you may be well ahead of me. 🙂 So there's no need to worry. OK, OK, not telling is childish, so here goes: it's one of the two switching regulators, namely the one providing the 3.3V for the external I/Os of CPU and PHYs. And, sadly, it's not the source of my problems, as that voltage is stable. The other voltage is the problematic one: the one coming from U11, named "ABF J08 375". Still, that regulator itself is not necessarily faulty since 1.2V are common and the voltage looks reasonable, except for the aforementioned periodic drops. Normally, I wouldn't consider 100mV drop to be an issue, but with only 1.2V to begin, that is nearly a 10% drop. And then there is the issue that 1.8V is another common voltage for that exact purpose, so there are two things that I cannot know, but Netgear could easily tell. Maybe you can see where my frustration comes from?
Message 5 of 6
schumaku
Guru

Re: GS116eV2 hardware info needed

The SerComm situation does describe things well: Brands like Netgear (and many others, including the big enterprise names - I've fought with Cisco regarding some WAP and SMB routers [lol] back long before the SerComm backdoor vulnerability became public) don't "own" the the internal hardware design for products typically offered in the consumer to small business market. Product differentiation is done by features, enclosures, ports, .... Typical ODM business. Many switch models from different brands are coming from one source, are built on very similar platforms. Many similar models show even the same keywords in the WebUI URLs. So not owning the rights on the hardware design, not even having access to internal design information makes it difficult to help us out here. You realize: I'm not Netgear.

Message 6 of 6
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