Well, in the last six months, I’ve lost the power supply of all three pieces of network equipment. Not their fault, but a good reminder of where the vulnerabilities are in today’s equipment. Someone at Google told me that their top two failure spots were power supplies and hard drives.
The other sad thing is that with computer component prices the way they are, it doesn’t make economic sense to replace a power supply. For instance, I have two 8-port Netgear FS-108 switches (they’ve been great), both have 5 volt 3 amp power supplies. The problem is that supplies cost $20 from Netgear and you can get a brand new box for about $40. So, what’s the sense.
Also lost the supply on my original Linksys BEF41 router. Caused it to suddenly hang. Another case, where another router is cheaper than finding a supply.
Only hope I have now is that new network equipment I’ve bought draws much less power. The new D-Link 624 and the Linksys routers for instance draw less than 1 amp (compared with 3 amps), so hopefully the supplies are less stressed also they should be cheaper to replace with a Radio Shack equivalent.

One response to “Blown Power Supplies in Home Networking Hardware”

  1. Darrell Avatar
    Darrell

    Funny, I replaced my BEFSR41 (blown power supply) with a D-Link 624. The 624 has been great but I needed to change the config of Windows Media Player to not use UDP. When I left UDP checked under streaming protocols, the 624 would hang requiring a reboot. BTW I like your site!

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