Hello everyone. First time poster here. We are having problems with a network connection at our business. We have hired people to come out and look at certain things, and nothing seems to work, and after some searches online before I have found that Tom's seems to have a lot of answers, so I'm hoping you guys might be able to help me. Please be aware I have no fiber experience what-so-ever. Everything I know I literally learned last night reading about fiber connections when attempting to find a solution to this issue.
Our current setup has us on fiber for our internet connection. We have had this for about 4 and a half years with no issues. We also have a mechanic's shop on our land that is about 800 ft from where the fiber comes in. The company that sold us the fiber agreed to run fiber to this shop from where they brought the fiber into our server room. I know that both the fiber coming in and the fiber between the server room and the shop is single mode fiber.
On the server room end, this company installed a Nortel 3510-24T switch with a US Critical J4858C 1000Base-SX SFP MMF 850nm, 550NM, LC mini-gbic. From this mini-gbic, there is a milti-mode LC/SC patch cable connecting it to the box on the wall that runs to the shop.
On the mechanic's shop end, there is a HP Procurve 2810-24G switch with a Procurve Networking J4858C mini-gbic installed. (The other information is not written on this one, but it looks like it's basically the same as the US critical one above. It does list 850nm on it at least.) From this mini-gbic, there is a multi-mode LC/SC cable connecting it to the fiber patch box on the wall.
This connection has a couple of issues that I am now aware of. Single-mode fiber running between the buildings, with multi-mode patch cables on each end and what I now understand to be multi-mode mini-gbics in each of the switches. However, this setup was not changed in any way, worked for at least 4 years, and started becoming intermittent about 3 weeks ago. The users in the shop started complaining of slow speeds and then dropping connections. Then the connections quit working completely and the switches would not link up.
Knowing nothing about fiber, I called a local support company that handles most of this stuff, and they sent someone out. He was able to login to the nortel switch and found a lot of errors and packet loss, and he said it was the switch. We wanted to replace the very old Nortel anyway, so we ordered a new switch, a Brocade ICX 6430-24. We moved the mini-gbic from the Nortel, which the tech said was still working and would work in the Brocade, into the new one and reconnected. They linked up, and the shop computers began working and had normal speeds.
2 days later, the slow speeds returned and intermittent network drops started back up. Then the connection failed completely and the link between the devices went down. I moved both the new Brocade switch and the Procurve switch to my office and connected them with an LC/LC multi-mode patch cable and they linked up immediately. But when I put them back in place and got no link again, I figured something must be wrong with the line between the server room and the shop. The company that installed it sent out a tech to test, and he checked all of it and said that it was working perfectly between the shop and server room, and there was no problem with the lines. He also checked the LC/SC cables and cleaned all connectors.
The local tech company is now telling me that the problem is the multi-mode mini-gbics and the multi-mode LC/SC cables, and that replacing them will fix my problem. I can see that this might be an issue, but I don't understand how it could have worked for over 4 years before this suddenly became a problem. I also don't want to spend this much more money on a fix unless I have at least a strong feeling that the solution will work. What do you guys think?
Our current setup has us on fiber for our internet connection. We have had this for about 4 and a half years with no issues. We also have a mechanic's shop on our land that is about 800 ft from where the fiber comes in. The company that sold us the fiber agreed to run fiber to this shop from where they brought the fiber into our server room. I know that both the fiber coming in and the fiber between the server room and the shop is single mode fiber.
On the server room end, this company installed a Nortel 3510-24T switch with a US Critical J4858C 1000Base-SX SFP MMF 850nm, 550NM, LC mini-gbic. From this mini-gbic, there is a milti-mode LC/SC patch cable connecting it to the box on the wall that runs to the shop.
On the mechanic's shop end, there is a HP Procurve 2810-24G switch with a Procurve Networking J4858C mini-gbic installed. (The other information is not written on this one, but it looks like it's basically the same as the US critical one above. It does list 850nm on it at least.) From this mini-gbic, there is a multi-mode LC/SC cable connecting it to the fiber patch box on the wall.
This connection has a couple of issues that I am now aware of. Single-mode fiber running between the buildings, with multi-mode patch cables on each end and what I now understand to be multi-mode mini-gbics in each of the switches. However, this setup was not changed in any way, worked for at least 4 years, and started becoming intermittent about 3 weeks ago. The users in the shop started complaining of slow speeds and then dropping connections. Then the connections quit working completely and the switches would not link up.
Knowing nothing about fiber, I called a local support company that handles most of this stuff, and they sent someone out. He was able to login to the nortel switch and found a lot of errors and packet loss, and he said it was the switch. We wanted to replace the very old Nortel anyway, so we ordered a new switch, a Brocade ICX 6430-24. We moved the mini-gbic from the Nortel, which the tech said was still working and would work in the Brocade, into the new one and reconnected. They linked up, and the shop computers began working and had normal speeds.
2 days later, the slow speeds returned and intermittent network drops started back up. Then the connection failed completely and the link between the devices went down. I moved both the new Brocade switch and the Procurve switch to my office and connected them with an LC/LC multi-mode patch cable and they linked up immediately. But when I put them back in place and got no link again, I figured something must be wrong with the line between the server room and the shop. The company that installed it sent out a tech to test, and he checked all of it and said that it was working perfectly between the shop and server room, and there was no problem with the lines. He also checked the LC/SC cables and cleaned all connectors.
The local tech company is now telling me that the problem is the multi-mode mini-gbics and the multi-mode LC/SC cables, and that replacing them will fix my problem. I can see that this might be an issue, but I don't understand how it could have worked for over 4 years before this suddenly became a problem. I also don't want to spend this much more money on a fix unless I have at least a strong feeling that the solution will work. What do you guys think?
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