If a managed network switch were to overheat, would you consider it no longer reliable?
- by Scott Szretter
Here is the scenario - I have a network switch, one of several in a stack. It's fan failed. Soon, there were reports of users with network issues. After quickly replacing the fan, the users were fine, network issues were resolved.
I assume the unit was overheating, and thus failing somehow.
Today someone suggested to me, that I should not assume the unit is 100% reliable anymore. So what do you think, would an overheat condition (less than 1 day with the fan stopped) potentially cause permanent damage that could at some point come to the surface as future network failures/issues?
If it matters, we are talking managed switches such as 3Com/HP SuperStack , ProCurve or PWR-Plus.