Cisco 2940 switch set up - help needed

[CN211276]

I did not get all that with my second hand 2960G and I paid £50.

Yours is probably a gigabit switch - with port speeds of 1000 mbps.

This is the cheapest full gigabit Cisco 8 port switch I can spot on UK ebay at the moment - at £70 OBO
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CISCO-CATALY ... SwAyZgCz-8

You got a very good deal. Savypaul got a very good deal.

About 6 months after the lockdown eases should be a good time to buy used / old Cisco switches. Because a lot of organisations would have put switch refreshes on hold due to Covid. Plus there will be all the bankrupt companies, with their old IT gear being decommissioned and sold off.

[savvypaul]

https://teamkci.com/wp-content/uploads/WS-C2940-EOL.pdf
It appears that Cisco stopped selling that model of switch 11 years ago.
The WS-C2940-TF-S is a Fast Ethernet switch, meaning that the max speed is 100 mbps.

I've been using same speed switches in my home for years.
My son's PC is on a port configured for 10 mbps - to stop him hogging the router internet connection bandwidth. His PC seems fine for speed when he's doing his video conferencing lessons or playing online games with Discord chat on or for game downloads.
All of which indicates that your 100 mbps speed should be fine.

If your switch came from this seller:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cisco-WS-C29 ... SwOypbe-0j
it's interesting how he didn't mention that Cisco stopped selling them in 2010.

I'm assuming yours came in a sealed Cisco box?

£19 is about the right price +/- £10 for that switch.

All in all, if you want a box to extend your home or business network, used or redundant old stock Cisco or HP Procurve switches make a lot of sense, because they are such nice pieces of engineering for such low prices.

Yes, a sealed Cisco box.

Now I just need a rich audiophile to let me compare it against their spanking new £2600 Innuos switch, which just came out this week...and is the same speed as my £19 switch: https://www.audiologica.co.uk/product/i ... hoenixnet/

The price on the website is ex VAT

[slinger]

I did not get all that with my second hand 2960G and I paid £50.

That's exactly the same switch I bought, at the same price.

[CN211276]

https://teamkci.com/wp-content/uploads/WS-C2940-EOL.pdf
It appears that Cisco stopped selling that model of switch 11 years ago.
The WS-C2940-TF-S is a Fast Ethernet switch, meaning that the max speed is 100 mbps.

I've been using same speed switches in my home for years.
My son's PC is on a port configured for 10 mbps - to stop him hogging the router internet connection bandwidth. His PC seems fine for speed when he's doing his video conferencing lessons or playing online games with Discord chat on or for game downloads.
All of which indicates that your 100 mbps speed should be fine.

If your switch came from this seller:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cisco-WS-C29 ... SwOypbe-0j
it's interesting how he didn't mention that Cisco stopped selling them in 2010.

I'm assuming yours came in a sealed Cisco box?

£19 is about the right price +/- £10 for that switch.

All in all, if you want a box to extend your home or business network, used or redundant old stock Cisco or HP Procurve switches make a lot of sense, because they are such nice pieces of engineering for such low prices.

Yes, a sealed Cisco box.

Now I just need a rich audiophile to let me compare it against their spanking new £2600 Innuos switch, which just came out this week...and is the same speed as my £19 switch: https://www.audiologica.co.uk/product/i ... hoenixnet/

The price on the website is ex VAT

That Innuos is quite shocking. As their website says:
"Simpler 100mbps network switch chip results in lower operating noise floor compared to Gigabit"

As I keep saying, if you go for fibre solution (for about £200 to £300) you will have zero transmitted electronic noise.

"Simpler"? So nothing to do with being cheaper for them?

Mind you, someone on the WAM mentioned that they tried fibre and they prefered the sound of copper. So wtf do I know? Apart from "Never trust what a user says about their IT set-up."

[savvypaul]

https://teamkci.com/wp-content/uploads/WS-C2940-EOL.pdf
It appears that Cisco stopped selling that model of switch 11 years ago.
The WS-C2940-TF-S is a Fast Ethernet switch, meaning that the max speed is 100 mbps.

I've been using same speed switches in my home for years.
My son's PC is on a port configured for 10 mbps - to stop him hogging the router internet connection bandwidth. His PC seems fine for speed when he's doing his video conferencing lessons or playing online games with Discord chat on or for game downloads.
All of which indicates that your 100 mbps speed should be fine.

If your switch came from this seller:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cisco-WS-C29 ... SwOypbe-0j
it's interesting how he didn't mention that Cisco stopped selling them in 2010.

I'm assuming yours came in a sealed Cisco box?

£19 is about the right price +/- £10 for that switch.

All in all, if you want a box to extend your home or business network, used or redundant old stock Cisco or HP Procurve switches make a lot of sense, because they are such nice pieces of engineering for such low prices.

Yes, a sealed Cisco box.

Now I just need a rich audiophile to let me compare it against their spanking new £2600 Innuos switch, which just came out this week...and is the same speed as my £19 switch: https://www.audiologica.co.uk/product/i ... hoenixnet/

The price on the website is ex VAT

That Innuos is quite shocking. As their website says:
"Simpler 100mbps network switch chip results in lower operating noise floor compared to Gigabit"

As I keep saying, if you go for fibre solution (for about £200 to £300) you will have zero transmitted electronic noise.

"Simpler"? So nothing to do with being cheaper for them?

Mind you, someone on the WAM mentioned that they tried fibre and they prefered the sound of copper. So wtf do I know? Apart from "Never trust what a user says about their IT set-up."

Perhaps your ears become more sensitive after Innuos have taken your eyes out...

[Lindsayt]

Perhaps your ears become more sensitive after Innuos have taken your eyes out...

Ah yes, the organ-selling school of hi-fi funding.

[terrybooth]

I think it's a managed switch. So the ports will be closed by default. Probably needs Cisco Works or some other management software and probably a serial cable.

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/do ... 2940CR.pdf

That would be the first Cisco switch I've ever come across that had the ports closed by factory default.
It would also be contrary to my CCNA 200-301 text book.

Lets start with the basics.

What LED's are lit on the 2940 when you power it up.
And what's the LED for the port showing when you plug a Cat5 (or better) patch lead in between the router and the switch?
And what when you connect the NAS box to the switch?
The port LED's flashing green is good.

A laptop with putty and the right sort USB to serial lead plus the console lead (normally) supplied with the switch, plus a bit of knowledge plus a few minutes is all you need to configure this switch.

But it should be passing on network traffic OK with no configuration.

Also BTW why did you buy a brand new switch instead of getting a used one off ebay?

Edit - we we're typing posts at the same time. Nice to see it's up and running now.

I stand corrected - that must be the practice where I work. I've never been hands-on with networking.

[Bencat57]

I've been wondering if maybe at the next Kegworth show I should offer to bring my laptop and console cable and put a config on any switches that anyone cares to bring?

On the one hand it would be nice to offer this service as a one off.
On the other hand, most users wouldn't notice the difference as most of the configuration is for setting up features that would be useful in a business setting. Eg remote management of the switch, setting up Vlans which divide the network up into separate segments for security and speed purposes, etc.

There's also the factor that there's about a 1 in 5000 chance that the switch will have a hardware failure during the process of powering it off and on and off again to configure it. Which is annoying as it can be difficult to convince users that it was just an unlucky coincidence, and not the result of incompetent configuration.

[Bencat57]

That is very nice offer but be careful with the number being bought you may be spending lots of time working on them.

Perhaps as these new old stock Cisco units have a console cable included you could write an idiot guide and config that we as users could implement ourselves ?

[Bencat57]

That is very nice offer but be careful with the number being bought you may be spending lots of time working on them.

Perhaps as these new old stock Cisco units have a console cable included you could write an idiot guide and config that we as users could implement ourselves ?

There are youtube videos that will show you the basics.

I could post up a template / sample config text file - when I can spare a bit of time to do so.

The amount of time to configure a switch is about 5 minutes, if you have a template that you are just adjusting for the particular switch - eg name assigned to switch, IP address, address of router, which ports will be connected to other switches or a router and which to PC's or printers.
The command line interface (CLI) on business switches looks daunting to the novice, but CLI's are fantastic from a speed of installation point of view.

The console cables that come with Cisco switches have a serial plug on the PC end. Most laptops and desktops don't have serial sockets on them these days. Older laptops from 2005 tended to have them.
The solution is a serial to USB adapter which costs about £3 for a cheap one, which is OK for switches, or £15 for a good one that works with switches and AP's. For some reason Cisco AP's are very fussy about USB to serial adapters.