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Brocade ICX Series (cheap & powerful 10gbE/40gbE switching)

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aliasxneo

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Aug 4, 2018
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Here's the spec sheet for the 10.3CFM fan (KDE1204PKVX):
https://datasheet.octopart.com/KDE1204PKVX.MS.AF.GN-Sunon-Fans-datasheet-605185.pdf

They're both rated for the same operational voltage ranges, huh.

Third page as well.
Yeah, that is very strange. I took a meter to the fan header and at low speed I was getting ~4VDC and ~9VDC on high. Which would make sense in my case if the starting voltage is indeed ~4.5v, however it doesn't explain how your 6 CFM fan is running on the low setting.
 

fohdeesha

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What multimeter did you use? the fan headers are most likely using PWM (a series of 12v and 0v pulses at very high frequency) to create an average voltage, and most cheap multimeters with poor high frequency averaging will give wildly different readings
 

aliasxneo

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Aug 4, 2018
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What multimeter did you use? the fan headers are most likely using PWM (a series of 12v and 0v pulses at very high frequency) to create an average voltage, and most cheap multimeters with poor high frequency averaging will give wildly different readings
Fluke 115. Specifically, it was reading 3.7v on low and 8.9v on high - same readings on both fan headers.
 

fohdeesha

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hmm, I'd probably trust it then. It's probable the smaller 6cfm sunon has no problem starting a volt or so below it's rated start voltage, whereas the larger sunon (and therefore larger rotor) requires closer to it's actual rating to get going. I'd be willing to bet if you spun it with your fingers to get it going it would continue on for a few revs, (if not forever). All that aside I would just go with the 6CFM, if it's not even spinning it up to speed 2, you're fine. If it's spinning up to full speed (2) and still running close to the warning level, THEN your fan is too small
 
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Gerald Laurence

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May 6, 2017
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+fohdeesha
Thank you for the great setup guide. Both of my 6450 had really old os without layer 3 commands but worked through your guide and updated them and completely set them both up. Licensing went perfect as well.

Great learning experience. My first time using CLI on a piece of networking equipment and first time setting up And using tftp server.

Quick question. I bought brocade sfp+ 10g SR transceivers here:
Brocade 10GB 57-0000075-01 10G-SFPP-SR 10Gbase-sr/sw 850nm SFP+ Transceiver >500 8904725111763 | eBay

(Seller accepted $9.00 offer buying 10)

Can I also use these in a NIC like a connect-x 3 en or a Intel 520?

Want to purchase three nics and mm patch cable to get this all set up

Thanks again!
 

scurrier

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Aug 4, 2018
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Updating my ICX 6450 to the latest firmware caused the idle fans to quiet WAY down. Seemed like the old stuff was from maybe 2012 - ugh. Prior to updating, the fans would be full speed when booting, then quiet down but still be audible from behind a closed closet door. After updating, it's audible, but tolerable to sit next to, and very quite from behind a closed door - thank god. I thought I was going to need to fiddle with replacing fans to keep the noise and power draw down.

Can we nominate @fohdeesha as forum member of the decade?
 

aliasxneo

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Aug 4, 2018
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Updating my ICX 6450 to the latest firmware caused the idle fans to quiet WAY down. Seemed like the old stuff was from maybe 2012 - ugh. Prior to updating, the fans would be full speed when booting, then quiet down but still be audible from behind a closed closet door. After updating, it's audible, but tolerable to sit next to, and very quite from behind a closed door - thank god. I thought I was going to need to fiddle with replacing fans to keep the noise and power draw down.

Can we nominate @fohdeesha as forum member of the decade?
I think it really depends on the age of the switch and the environment it came from. On the newest firmware you could still hear my 6450 from behind a closed door - and the whine was the most noticeable thing in my entire rack. It probably was roughly the same decibel level of the 3560 it replaced - but the pitch was just unbearable for my taste. I'd rather hear a whoosh than a whine :p
 

fohdeesha

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I think it really depends on the age of the switch and the environment it came from. On the newest firmware you could still hear my 6450 from behind a closed door - and the whine was the most noticeable thing in my entire rack. It probably was roughly the same decibel level of the 3560 it replaced - but the pitch was just unbearable for my taste. I'd rather hear a whoosh than a whine :p
it sounds like the fan bearing was on it's way out, should definitely not be any whine! I have a couple running behind me with stock fans and can't hear it over my desktop
 

SocalServerGuy

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Jul 11, 2017
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I think it really depends on the age of the switch and the environment it came from. On the newest firmware you could still hear my 6450 from behind a closed door - and the whine was the most noticeable thing in my entire rack. It probably was roughly the same decibel level of the 3560 it replaced - but the pitch was just unbearable for my taste. I'd rather hear a whoosh than a whine :p
I had this happen on my r720xd where one fan was just plain loud, tried adding some sewing machine oil but still couldn't quiet down the fan. I saw a Sunon fan recommended earlier I'm going to give a try. While the 6450's are quiet one of them will be in the living room and as close to silence as possible will keep the peace with the GF.
 

scurrier

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Aug 4, 2018
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Does anyone know why Brocade offers two different firmware images on these switches? I understand that one is layer 3 and one is layer 2, but why did this require two firmware images? If the layer 3 image includes all the layer 2 stuff, what's the purpose of the layer 2 image?
 

fohdeesha

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it's a hold-over from wayyy back in the Foundry days (the heritage of brocade's switching stuff). If I remember right, the layer2 only images saved some CPU cycles and allowed you to run more STP/RSTP etc instances than with the l3 image taking up more CPU. This hasn't been the case for more than 10 years though, they're all identical limitation wise now (CPU's have gotten WAY faster since ~2005). I'm pretty sure they're actually in the middle of getting rid of this with the current ICX7xxx series, moving to a "unified image"
 

AlphaG

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Jun 8, 2017
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So an ICX 6450-C12-PD arrived today. It was packaged well. Nice little very sturdy unit. Very slight dent on a front corner but this thing is beefy. No fans. Unfortunately I am unable to gain console access for some reason. The console port just doesn't seem to work. The pins are straight and clean. The cable is fine because if I just plug it into a 6450-24P plugged in next to it the console responds no problem.

Tried the reset button, but that just seems to restart it. Without console access this thing is basically useless to me. I will have to return it to the ebay vendor unless one of you guys has an idea?
 

fohdeesha

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I don't have much experience with the smaller non-10gbe C12 models but I'm pretty sure the serial port is identical. There's a small chance it came with dev software running the serial port at a different baud rate (seen that once before). Try changing your serial baud rate to 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200, booting it fresh each time to see if you get any boot output

does it happen to have a little black QR sticker on it that says brocade?
 

scurrier

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Aug 4, 2018
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Anyone know how to get 802.3at working on the ICX-6450-48P? When I run "show inline power" I see that my Ruckus R700 WiFi Access Point is running in 802.3af mode, not 802.3at mode. It's definitely capable of 802.3at, but can fallback to 802.3af. I want it running at 802.3at. There are no mode settings on the R700 web management for this.

On the switch, first I ran these to get POE turned on:
Code:
interface ethernet 1/1/1 to 1/1/48
inline power
"show inline power" yields the following line revealing I'm only getting 802.3af:
Code:
 Port   Admin   Oper    ---Power(mWatts)---  PD Type  PD Class  Pri  Fault/
        State   State   Consumed  Allocated                          Error
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1/1/47 On      On          3700      15400  802.3af  Class 3     3  n/a
After doing this, when I plug the access point in I can see the physical "POE+" light turn on on the switch. So it seems to be sensing OK, but not powering at Class 4 / 802.3at levels. Regardless, I did some reading and it seems that LLDP has something to do with the software-implemented flavor of 802.3at power negotiation. So I ran the following, but to no avail:
Code:
lldp run
lldp advertise med-capabilities ports all
lldp advertise med-power-via-mdi ports all
lldp advertise power-via-mdi ports all
Any other ideas?
 

fohdeesha

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Looking at the r700 (not r710) datasheet, it states it only supports "PoE: 802.3af compliant". Only the 710 has AT support (according to Ruckus)

https://ruckus-www.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/datasheets/ds-ruckus-r700.pdf

Which would make sense, looking at your output it's barely using even 1/5th of the AF power limit

ps: the POE/POE+ combo light on the switch ports lights up if it's providing any kind of PoE power, it's not specific to AT devices
 
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AlphaG

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Jun 8, 2017
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I don't have much experience with the smaller non-10gbe C12 models but I'm pretty sure the serial port is identical. There's a small chance it came with dev software running the serial port at a different baud rate (seen that once before). Try changing your serial baud rate to 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200, booting it fresh each time to see if you get any boot output

does it happen to have a little black QR sticker on it that says brocade?
Hmmm... Tried your suggestions, reloading Putty and the switch each time changing baud rate. No luck. There is a QR code on a large white sticker that has model, SN, LID #'s. Is that what you're referring to?
 

fohdeesha

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small sticker on the front usually like this :



If so, that means it came from brocade HQ's office buildings, probably the development lab, a lot of sellers on ebay were selling these recently. A lot of them came with internal-use only dev software (pretty much just flat linux). Had to help 3 or 4 STH members load in the normal bootloader and OS.

However even if that's the case you should still be getting serial output. Stupid question, but you're plugging into the console port, not the ethernet management port, right? If you're really getting no serial output, there's not much to do other than return it
 

scurrier

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Aug 4, 2018
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