> I've had one of these since 2002 or 2003 and it has worked > solidly ever > since. Of course, it'd be weird if such a simple device had any > problems.
You'd be surprised how often and in how weird ways such simple devices can fail. A couple of months ago at a client's site a cheapo Jaht switch had decided to lose every 5th packet or so. Broke the network in many interesting ways. The fact that I was on a business trip on the other side of the globe at that time didn't help, nor the fact that in phone bills and time spent debugging I could have probably bought a gold plated switch in the first place. I've seen even 4-port 100Mb hubs - the dumbest devices of them all - hanging up and requiring a reset (3Com OfficeConnect of undetermined vintage). Moral of the story - even switches and hubs should come under suspcion when you are debugging your network. Regards, Mitja
