Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Dell 5524 blinking lights and no CLI via serial - dead?

So I recently picked up a Dell PowerConnect 5524 and a pair of Intel X520-DA1 cards for my desktop and file server because, well, why not be able to transfer my Linux ISOs around at 10gig speed? I powered the switch up, connected via serial cable (why is that still a thing?), reset factory defaults, and I was off to the races. I then uploaded the latest firmware via the web GUI, and rebooted without a hitch.

Shortly after that, I began messing around with the fans. I had already removed the lid, disconnected the fans, and spliced the connectors onto some Sunon fans I had purchased at this point, but they were not permanently installed. After realizing one of the two 'identical' Sunon fans was significantly louder than the other, I went back to my desktop to do some interweb research.

At this point I noticed that I could no longer access the web GUI for the switch, but my network connectivity was still fully functional. Somewhat puzzled, I pulled the power cable from the switch, hoping that a power cycle would fix the issue. After plugging the power cable back in, the "stack no." indicator counted down to "0" instead of "1" and the "pwr" and "status" lights were just blinking repeatedly. My desktop now had no network connectivity, and I still could not access the web GUI. I attempted connecting via serial cable again, with the same configuration that worked previously, but I got no output.

Did I manage to somehow fry something while playing around with the fans? The only information I've been able to find online were two unresolved posts on Reddit and the Dell support forums about almost identical sounding issues, with blinking lights and no serial connection. I'm also very impressed by the complete lack of a "troubleshooting" section in ANY of the Dell literature. I ordered a MikroTik CSS326 like I should have in the first place, but if there's something obvious I'm overlooking here, I would still like to get this Dell switch operational again.



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