(Sounds like a program the Fox network would air…)
Some time between 2 AM and 11 AM PDT, both my server machines in the colo dropped off the network. It seems implausible that both would fail for any reason other than a power failure, so I drove over to the colo to have a look. Both machines were still humming along, but neither would talk to the outside world, or each other. The activity lights on the ethernet switch were flashing like crazy, though, which seemed strange. I power cycled the switch, and that seemed to fix the problem, so I left, though the lights were still flashing like crazy.
Only to discover when I got back that the machines were off the network again. I decided that the switch, an inexpensive Hawking five-port 10/100 switch, must have gone bad. I returned to the colo and replaced the switch with a spare Airlink (Fry’s store brand?) five-port 10/100/1000 switch I had lying around. That solved the problem, and this time it seems to have stayed solved.
Apparently the switch has been causing trouble for a while, as I’ve seen poor network performance between the two machines, and one user of my server has been complaining for more than a month that it’s been very slow. With the new switch, these problems went away.
At some point I might want to replace the consumer-grade unmanaged switch with a business-grade managed switch. However, for now the Airlink is working fine, and it’s unreasonable to complain too much about the Hawking switch since it was very inexpensive and did work fine for more than three years.
Sorry for writing here, but I have not had luck with e-mail. I tried to contact you multiple times back in September. (I shipped a batch of Kenbak kits). I’m now getting ready to ship the Altair 680 kits and would like to know if you still want one. : )
E-mail me with your phone number and I’ll give you a call.