Netgear switch not playing well with vlan

I've had this problem with my works vlan for a few weeks now and I'm really stumped about what is happening.

IT set up a vlan for our department to use. During certain events they will run us a line and assign it to our vlan. There are some places in the facility where we have audio-video equipment and there is a permanent connection to our vlan.

IT ran us a line to a temp trailer for an event and we connect a brand new Netgear Prosafe 16 port gigabit switch (JGS516). Plug it in and no connection. Link light will sometimes turn green then turn off. Sometimes it won't even turn on. I've tried different ports, different cables. I've disconnected a whole group of devices in one of our AV rooms and it had no effect. A friend said it might be STP on the managed switch feeding us, but our IT department says they don't use STP on the network. This test

IT gave me a Netgear 8 port switch to try...works instantly. Connects to vlan, DHCP dishes out IPs etc. If I connect the vlan to the 8 port first then use a patch cable to connect to the 16 port gigabit switch this also works.

I also have an older Netgear 10/100 that used to work when I plugged in the vlan connection but now it doesn't even though I get solid green link lights on it.

Not really sure what else try or should I RMA the Netgear 16 port?