Ever have bad voltage on an ethernet jack on a router/switch?

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So I've got a bit of an odd problem I'm trying to solve.

I have an ASUS RT-N66U router which has a desktop, xbox, and my brand new NAS directly wired into it. Whenever I hook the brand new NAS up with a single ethernet cable (I tried different cables of length: 7ft, 20ft, 50ft), the NAS freezes. Problem happens regardless of port used.

Unintentionally, I ended up hooking the NAS up to a series of 3 smaller ethernet cables coupled together and found out it does NOT freeze when hooked up this way! I tried buying all brand new wires and the problem still happened! In desperation, I went and bought a brand new router to see if this would make any difference and it turns out it did! With the new router, any size single network cable will now work. If I hook the old router back up, only multiple cables chained together will keep the attached NAS stable.

So my question is: What the heck was wrong with my last router? Is it possible it was damaged and was sending too much voltage down the ethernet lines? Did anyone ever have that happen? Why did having multiple cables connected together seem to remedy the problem?

Michael

Posted 2014-10-14T21:33:17.833

Reputation: 51

Two things to consider - 1. The coupler may not have all the lines connected. One of the "disconnected" lines might have the high voltage you mentioned. 2. The shield in cable might have made the difference. – Scott Rhee – 2014-10-14T21:53:13.200

Thanks for the feedback. When experimenting with both routers, I unplugged all devices except for the NAS and my desktop. (I need the desktop plugged in since the NAS would freeze whenever files are transferred to it) So if one of the connected devices had high voltage, wouldn't I have had an issue with the new router? – Michael – 2014-10-14T21:56:43.290

The thing that I find interesting is that consistently, the NAS would work 100% when hooked up to multiple network cables coupled together. Yet it would fail non-stop when just on a single cable. Perhaps multiple cables coupled together have a higher electrical resistance which in turn dissipated the bad voltage being output by the router? – Michael – 2014-10-14T22:00:52.580

Can you explain what you mean by "the NAS freezes"? – David Schwartz – 2014-10-15T04:30:07.980

The NAS locks up where it needs the power cord pulled to reset. (You can't ping it or access it in any way) – Michael – 2014-10-16T15:16:40.277

Answers

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What kind of adapter are you using to join the cables together? Is it rated for Ethernet? If not, it's probably not passing the performance tests that a Gigabit Ethernet connection performs during startup. Therefore, when you are connected with multiple cables you are possibly only making a 100 megabit connection.

This leads to a couple possible reasons for the problem: a bad nic driver in the NAS, a bad nic, bad memory, a bug in the software on the NAS, etc.

I would start by checking for a firmware update for the NAS. Or if you can live with 100 megabit speeds, change the port settings on the NAS and your router.

longneck

Posted 2014-10-14T21:33:17.833

Reputation: 372

Asked: 2014-10-14T21:33:17.833

Viewed: 706 times

Active: 2014-10-15T03:06:28.470