Cisco 2960 - Power Cables

French Rooster posted:

my white and new model cisco 2960 8tc is completely silent vs the old refurbished grey/blue model i had before :   the later was fan running when it was hot outside ( during 10 minutes every a couple of hours).

Strange, as far as I was aware, all the 8 port versions are fanless!

Quite I believe all the 8 port models have been fanless-- its part of their design so they could be housed in offices and / or rooms being shared with people so noise wasn't intrusive. 

ChrisSU posted:

French Rooster posted:

my white and new model cisco 2960 8tc is completely silent vs the old refurbished grey/blue model i had before :   the later was fan running when it was hot outside ( during 10 minutes every a couple of hours).

Strange, as far as I was aware, all the 8 port versions are fanless!

???? CHRISSU,....If I don't have complete "brain drop", it's so,...agree.!

/Peder???? 

ChrisSU posted:

French Rooster posted:

my white and new model cisco 2960 8tc is completely silent vs the old refurbished grey/blue model i had before :   the later was fan running when it was hot outside ( during 10 minutes every a couple of hours).

Strange, as far as I was aware, all the 8 port versions are fanless!

i don’t know if i used the good term.  But when it was hot, more than 29 degree celsius outside, the last cisco i had was making noise like fan running, every several hours.  It was even very noisy, during perhaps 10 mn.    The term in french is «  le bruit du ventilateur « .

The model was a cisco 2960 8tc, 2009.  

i found a forum on cisco switch, a guy is also talking about the cisco 2960s «  fan loud ». Perhaps the model i had was not the 2960 8tc?    but specified as 8tc when i bought it.

French Rooster posted:

ChrisSU posted:

French Rooster posted:

my white and new model cisco 2960 8tc is completely silent vs the old refurbished grey/blue model i had before :   the later was fan running when it was hot outside ( during 10 minutes every a couple of hours).

Strange, as far as I was aware, all the 8 port versions are fanless!

i don’t know if i used the good term.  But when it was hot, more than 29 degree celsius outside, the last cisco i had was making noise like fan running, every several hours.  It was even very noisy, during perhaps 10 mn.    The term in french is «  le bruit du ventilateur « .

The model was a cisco 2960 8tc, 2009.  

???? French Rooster,....If you are unsure of what we say,it's just to open your Cisco and check.
There are only 3 screws,one on each short side and one at the top.
Then open the lid upwards,backwards.

Once you have opened your Cisco,take the opportunity to "exercise" the contact between the "Audioboard" and the power supply card 10 times.
This is to remove oxides between the contact surfaces.

/Peder ????

fzman posted:

What's the liklihood that video performance would also be improved?  I am woefully unsure whether my Tivo pulls Netflix and Amazon content via the ethernet connection, or via the coax/cable-card from Xfinity (which is ultimately where my internet comes from anyway.) Not sure whether video streaming needs 1Gb vs 100Mb. Inquiring minds want to know.....

Amazon and Netflix are both under 40Mb/s depending on quality of download, the BBC player required 40Mb/s for the football / tennis in UHD

Peder posted:

French Rooster posted:

ChrisSU posted:

French Rooster posted:

my white and new model cisco 2960 8tc is completely silent vs the old refurbished grey/blue model i had before :   the later was fan running when it was hot outside ( during 10 minutes every a couple of hours).

Strange, as far as I was aware, all the 8 port versions are fanless!

i don’t know if i used the good term.  But when it was hot, more than 29 degree celsius outside, the last cisco i had was making noise like fan running, every several hours.  It was even very noisy, during perhaps 10 mn.    The term in french is «  le bruit du ventilateur « .

The model was a cisco 2960 8tc, 2009.  

???? French Rooster,....If you are unsure of what we say,it's just to open your Cisco and check.
There are only 3 screws,one on each short side and one at the top.
Then open the lid upwards,backwards.

Once you have opened your Cisco,take the opportunity to "exercise" the contact between the "Audioboard" and the power supply card 10 times.
This is to remove oxides between the contact surfaces.

/Peder ????

it is a good idea Peder, but as i said before, i have no more this item.  I replaced it by a brand new one, white model, for around 100 eur, very good price. The new one is completely silent, even with very hot temperatures we had here some days ago.

I’ve gone a bit switch crazy and have a 2960L-16PS-LL coming tomorrow that I picked up off the bay for $155. It was manufactured eight months ago. I need the gig speed and extra ports for the main household switch - I’ll still SFP to the other 2010 built 2960-8tc-L in the living room, and maybe to one in the office as well. 

My thinking on network tweaks is if one even gets  say a 1-3% change in sound quality for every tweak down the line, those percentages can add up. Get the network robust with proper cables, switches, linear power supply for the server, etc and it can be similar to a “box” upgrade for less money. 

I've deployed two 2960 8-port switches in my home, one each for PS Audio ethernet-connected Directstream DACs used as Roon endpoints. One is connected directly to my Asus router/switch, the other one connected via a metal-cased D-Link DGS-105 gigabit switch, which is connected to the Asus.  Both systems sounded better as a result of using the 2960s.-- thanks all!!!

Last night I connected my Tivo and a Marantz surround receiver to the Cisco 2960, rather than to the D-Link, and I am pretty sure that the picture quality improved.  I'll probably eliminate the D-Link, now that I am confident that the 100M is enough for the audio and video needs.  

In spite of suggestions to the contrary I also ordered, but have yet to receive a 24 port 2960G, to use in my basement to connect the Roon nuc, QNAP NAS, and the other switches to the Asus 88U, which will still do my routing and wi-fi.  Is there any speed/bandwith perfomance advantage to using SFPs and fibre to connect the Ciscos to each other-since they already have the sockets, and the cable seems pretty inexpensive. I have quite fast internet, and do sometimes send large files across my network from pcs to NAs, and vice-versa.

Thanks in advance for reading this.

fzman posted:

I've deployed two 2960 8-port switches in my home, one each for PS Audio ethernet-connected Directstream DACs used as Roon endpoints. One is connected directly to my Asus router/switch, the other one connected via a metal-cased D-Link DGS-105 gigabit switch, which is connected to the Asus.  Both systems sounded better as a result of using the 2960s.-- thanks all!!!

Last night I connected my Tivo and a Marantz surround receiver to the Cisco 2960, rather than to the D-Link, and I am pretty sure that the picture quality improved.  I'll probably eliminate the D-Link, now that I am confident that the 100M is enough for the audio and video needs.  

 

In spite of suggestions to the contrary I also ordered, but have yet to receive a 24 port 2960G, to use in my basement to connect the Roon nuc, QNAP NAS, and the other switches to the Asus 88U, which will still do my routing and wi-fi.  Is there any speed/bandwith perfomance advantage to using SFPs and fibre to connect the Ciscos to each other-since they already have the sockets, and the cable seems pretty inexpensive. I have quite fast internet, and do sometimes send large files across my network from pcs to NAs, and vice-versa.

Thanks in advance for reading this.

 

Pretty sure from memory the 2960 SFP fibre modules can be set at 1gbps and so no speed/bandwidth advantage to using twisted pair SFP or TP port. However you get the extended distance (greater than 100m) with fibre. Worth pointing out  with this  fibre you may have issues with very short distances in terms of reliability and burn out.. best keep above a metre or so.

Simon

Simon,  Thanks.  The fibre runs would be in the 5m range.  It's more a curiosity thing for me, since I have the capability to try it. I am running all of the switches un-managed.  I had a training seminar at a High-End Audio factory, which was attended by lots of custom install folks, who swore by stuff like Pakedge for their big installs.  Been thinking about enterprise-level stuff ever since.   The cast-off 2960s are really inexpensive, and so far, easy to deploy, and work really well. Not sure how much more performance can be gotten from them.  Am not sure if I ever want to take on the challenge of buying and programming a router...

Hi, yes the older 2960 models are readily available cheap on the used market.. of course the cost determiner to a large extent is the iOS software build in them, but I suspect that is irrelevant for most home network use. They are very capable machines. Newer models have mostly higher port speeds, greater capacity and more efficient operation.

one thought i think you will need to ‘manage’ (ie login and set up) your switch to enable and configure the SFP interface as a fibre Ethernet port...so that might not be plug and play. On your last point, routers can be complex, but don’t need to be for basic use, the 3560 is a layer 3 Catalyst switch.. that is it’s like a catalyst switch similar to the 2960 but it also has routing functionality. This can be also got used relatively cheap,y... they appear to give the same sonic advantages as the 2960 and significantly more capable than the 2960. They have the potential to create quiet routable subnets for your audio. A quiet subnet is what I describe a subnet with minimal broadcast traffic. This means less streamer overhead, NIC processing and current draw which has the potential for better SQ and is genuine network optimisation as opposed to simple segment link optimisation that is mostly referred to on this forum as so called ‘network’ optimisation)  if you do decide to play remember to use PIM forwarding across your subnets if you want UPnP device discovery ( IP multicast address 235.255.255.250) and update to work across them.

Simon, are there any discernible differences between 2960 switches, as I bought what I think is an older model ws-2960g-8tc-l and it works fine and I think better than the tp-link i had previously, but wanted to make sure I have the best model for the job.

Hi, no meaningful differences as far as I have been able to determine

So got my practically brand new and sadly dented in one corner during shipping, $155 2960-L-16PS-LL up and running as my main switch (a Tibia for a cable). I was hasty in plugging it into the network and had a hell of a time getting everything to work properly but they do know. Couldn't seem to get the fiber working to the older 2960 upstairs, so just went with the Ghent JSSG lan cable to the mR plugged into a keystone that then goes to the new Cisco main switch almost directly below it in basement closet. To my ears, the new switch, even with the cheap keystone, sounds better than the old switch with the fiber link. More natural, less fatiguing sounding. Better separation esp in the highs - for example on my test track, the beginning of Jamal's Ahmad's Blues title track, there's a long piano roll in the high notes. I can really hear the individual keys now. I also run the mR in Bridge mode to feed Roon to the UQ in the office, via cheap Teragrand flat (to go under a carpet) lan cable from the new main switch, and that sounds better as well. So my conclusion is there's really no gain in going via fiber to another older 2960 unless for infrastructure reasons. I also think the quality of a switch is really a lot more important than many realize. I may experiment again, but for now I'm not touching anything! 

Yeah, thinking now these fiber media convertors that made the sound "better" were actually just playing catch up for poor switches (esp those Netgears everyone was advised to use). Will be interesting to see what Uptone comes up with for their new switch, though difficult to touch the price of these used Cisco's, esp if patient. Some have been modding the 2960's with better caps, regulators etc on the power supply for a further uptick in sq. 

Once you have a Catalyst type switch on, the next big thing is looking at the inter frame spacing consistency from your media server... on my NDX that makes a significant difference... significantly more impacting than WAV or FLAC play back. The best sounding combo I have found so far is ReadDLNA running on a Netgear RN102.

I think i get what you mean. I’m running Roon ROCK on a NUC 7i5 powered by an HDPLEX 100 and couldn’t be happier. Not switching anytime soon. My DAC V1 and NAP 110 are punching well above their weight with all of the network source tweaks I’ve done. 

charlesphoto posted:

Some have been modding the 2960's with better caps, regulators etc on the power supply for a further uptick in sq. 

And one in our group who is a Electronics Designer at a really,really high level...has built a very large linear Power Supply to his Cisco 2960.

Only the components cost over € 420:-,I have ordered one..It will be very interesting to test it.
I have never thought that a switch could have such great importance,....it is really fun..
The cheapest upgrade I have ever made.

/Peder ????

charlesphoto posted:

Yeah, thinking now these fiber media convertors that made the sound "better" were actually just playing catch up for poor switches (esp those Netgears everyone was advised to use). Will be interesting to see what Uptone comes up with for their new switch, though difficult to touch the price of these used Cisco's, esp if patient. Some have been modding the 2960's with better caps, regulators etc on the power supply for a further uptick in sq. 

i had a similar experience : with a brand new cisco 2960 and high quality lan cables, i don’t need anymore to use the fiber bridge with fmc.  The cisco has now a good furutech power cable and is connected to a high quality power block.   My system had never sounded so good.

Peder posted:

charlesphoto posted:

Some have been modding the 2960's with better caps, regulators etc on the power supply for a further uptick in sq. 

And one in our group who is a Electronics Designer at a really,really high level...has built a very large linear Power Supply to his Cisco 2960.

 

Given how the switch works I think that is unlikely to add anything and possibly even detract, as I expect the switch uses internally dc current converters. If you really were curious you could power some of the  devices by their UPS interfaces ... so you will need DC power rails of +12 volts and -52volts. You could also power some of the devices by a Cisco 2300 which effectively can provide battery ups power.

I power one of my switches by PoE and don’t notice any difference, as well as an external  DC supply... I suspect the internal dc current converters (inter DC switch mode supply converters) have more bearing. 

Simon

I forgot to say, my 2960PD-8TT-L switch is powered by an external 48 volt DC supply.... again no difference in sound to connected devices using their internal PSU units or PoE.