Should I disable PoE on a switch?

[fiza]

We have a number of Procurve switches (E5406zl). Some are used to power the wireless access points using PoE on some ports. My question is does it do any harm if the other ports are left with PoE switched on? when I look at the status for PoE on these ports its always on "searching". Does it make a difference to performance to switch it off so its not searching?

[Michael]

It's perfectly OK to do either, but normally if I have a PoE switch, I leave all ports enabled as PoE.

[computer_expert]

It's perfectly OK to do either, but normally if I have a PoE switch, I leave all ports enabled as PoE.

 

Same here too. We have a few unmanaged POE switches too (so have no choice on these ones).

[robjduk]

it "may" be worth disabling POE on the others to ensure the ones you need to have it have first dibs on the power. I doubt this is really an issue for you but I used to have a PoE switch which couldn't handle it if everything was using PoE at once.

[Meldrew]

Do you mean that the ports not actively supplying power are completely unused or are connected to non-POE equipment? I have heard anecdotally that connecting a cheap non-POE network device to a POE enabled connection can cause damage to the device - I think I read this in PC Pro a year or so back.

 

Meldrew.

[fiza]

Do you mean that the ports not actively supplying power are completely unused or are connected to non-POE equipment? I have heard anecdotally that connecting a cheap non-POE network device to a POE enabled connection can cause damage to the device - I think I read this in PC Pro a year or so back.

 

Meldrew.

 

Yes there are computers connected to the other ports.