Fibre Issues

[featured_spectre]

I recently have been experiencing issues with my fibre, more specifically, the fibre run from my ICT suite to my Comms cab (all other fibre runs are perfectly fine). Now I initially thought that it may be my switches (well they were 2nd hand, over 5 years old, and alot of ports were not working on them and the GBICs were giving up) so I replaced them with brand spanking new switches (curtesy of CP ltd). Now the fibre worked for all of 5 minutes with the new switches in place, but then suddenly stopped.

 

Would it be worth my while to get the company that did the fibre run to come out and check it for us (at our cost). Or would there be anything else I can do in the meantime?

 

Cheers

[teejay]

Yes, get the company out to check it, they should cover the cost as they should have offered a warranty with the installation. All our cabling is covered for 25 years.

The other thing is check you've set the speed and duplex for the fibre manually on the switches, leaving them on auto doesn't work too well, especially with 1Gb fibre.

[maniac]

You can do a very basic check on a fiber run with two people and a torch, that will prove that the fibre isn't broken. Did you renew the patch leads with the switches? If so check they are the correct type for your fixed fibre, they will be either 62.5/125 or 50/125 and it will be printed on the outer casing of both fibres. IT would also be worth checking the logs on the switch is its managed, as it's may be possible that there was a high number of errors on the fiber port which may lead some switches to disable the port - hence the reason it worked for a short while then stopped. Also it would be worth trying a different switch, and maybe swapping out the fibre modules - it's not unheard of for these to be faulty out the box - I've had a new one that was faulty before.

 

Assuming it all checks out, i.e correct patch leads and no error logs and a different switch or fibre module renders the same results, then get the company out - they should guaruntee the fiber for a certain period of time after installation - up to 25years in some cases. They'll be able to bung a tester on it and find out what the problem is with ease if they're any good and if there is a fault they shouldn't charge. If there isn't a fault, then they may do depending on the company.

 

We use a local company for all our cabling who will pop in for free and test cables/fibers if we think there's any issues. (We do give them quite a bit of business however.)

 

Mike.

Edited July 22, 2010 by maniac

[featured_spectre]

right cables for the switches and panels. no dead ports and it is set to full duplex...May need to ring them up in september now as if I did it now, without an order authorisation, i would be in the firing line

[featured_spectre]

I am going to go in tomorrow afternoon to do 1 more test (the light test)...beyond that not much i can do without calling them in!