Some ethernet ports don't work

[jkhoch]

I work at a school. We had a storm yesterday that knocked out our septic motor, so there was a lighting strike close to the building. We are now finding that a few of the ethernet plugs are not working. The message we get is"the cable is not connected." But we do have the cables connected. One of the computers is a laptop. When it is connected to its normal wall outlet, it doesn't work. But when we plugged it into the adjoining outlet, it works fine. There is a desktop computer in the same part of the building giving the same message. Any suggestions?

 

[jlazzaro]

what type of switches? to eliminate everything else, bring a known working laptop to the switch itself and plug in using a good patch cord. take a look at the port configuration as well, make sure its not something stupid like its manually shutdown or in error disable state. if still nothing, you probobly have some dead ports. no biggie, just rma the switch.

wild guess: cisco 3500xl?

 

[spidey07]

I'd guess 3500 xl as well. those damn dogs.

Anyway, you could very well have a batch of ports or single ports that are bad. take the laptop into the wiring close and hook directly to the switch that it's network drop runs to, same port.

If no go, then most likely bad ports.

 

[jkhoch]

Close. It is a Cisco 2950, hooked through a 3Com Super Stack switch. Looking at the back of the super stack, all of the port lights are lit up, both green and yellow. What does this mean?

 

[BZeto]

check the ports of the switch that the laptop/desktop that arent working are plugged into.

 

[cmetz]

jkhoch, first try power cycling. Sometimes that's enough to slap switches back into working correctly. If that doesn't work, and all the lights are lit up solid and stay that way when you plug and unplug things, that probably means a dead or going switch.

 

[jkhoch]

What do you mean power cycling?

 

[jlazzaro]

1) turn off
2) turn on

 

[jkhoch]

That is what I thought. We tried that, and nothing has changed.