[f-nsp] Dying GIG-Ports on jetcore bigirons

[Tom Samplonius]

   Ok, so this means that the GigE ports on the SIXLs are a bit iffy too?

   Is this there an easy way of telling what the optics are, without taking them 
apart?  A dig command in the CLI maybe?

   Are optics failures after a few years common outside of Foundry?  I thought 
that SX based ports should be very reliable, as most used LEDs, not lasers.


Tom


On Sun, 30 Jul 2006, Gillian Canty-Ross wrote:

> Those GigE ports are questionable at best.  However, I have found that the
> cards with the Finisar GBICs are more reliable than the other branded GBICs
> that Foundry used.  This goes for the single/dual GigE uplinks for
> ServerIrons as well.
>
> Just an FYI...
>
> -Gilli
>
>
> On 7/30/06 10:31 AM, "Richard A Steenbergen" <ras at e-gerbil.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Jul 30, 2006 at 03:58:17PM +0200, Gunther Stammwitz wrote:
>>> Hello colleagues,
>>>
>>>> From time to time Gigabit-Fiber-Ports on our old
>>> BI8GMR-Jetcore-Managementmodules are dying. In most cases they're starting
>>> to cause crc-errors which can be seen as rx-errors on the devices connected
>>> to them. Other ports are completely dead and don't bring up any link at all.
>>>
>>> I have heard that this is "normal" because the lasers on those modules are
>>> so old and are reaching their end of life. Is there a cheap way to replace
>>> them?
>>>
>>> What about the B8GMR3-Modules: are they affected too? I'm thinking about
>>> replacing the B8GMRs with B8GMR3s because they are cheap on the grey market
>>> - but this would only make sense if they're not affected.
>>
>> Boy are they ever. I have dozens of B8GMR3 and B8G cards with dead ports
>> a-plenty, some with 6 7 or even all 8 ports completely unusable. There is
>> a reason those cards are so cheap on the grey market, and that is that no
>> one wants to gamble on them. Even if everything checks out today, they can
>> start failing one by one tomorrow, and in 6 months you can have a card
>> with no working ports.
>>
>> Foundry seems to have one of the worst problems in this area by far,
>> primarily with certain brands of optics used in early production runs (I
>> used to know which, but I've honestly stopped caring). Other versions of
>> the same cards can still run forever, but you never know what you're going
>> to get. If you really care and you can work a soldering iron, it's cheap
>> and easy to replace those 1x9 transceivers, but personally this stopped
>> being worth my time compared to buying new systems with 6x the density a
>> long time ago. :)
>>
>> If you really must keep using (or at least doing new deployments of) those
>> things, do yourself a favor and buy cards with modular optics like M4s and
>> BxGs for a few bucks more.
>
> -- 
> Gillian Canty-Ross                  PH: +1617-680-6492
> SubSpace Communications, LLC        http://www.subspacecom.com
> AIM: gillicanty                     Skype: gillicanty
>         The Geeks' choice for Network Gear!
>
>
>
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