Switch LED Indicators

Let's talk about the lights on the front of your switch. You have multiple lights on the front of the switch. Depending on the model that you have, you're going to see a different combination of these lights, but let's go over the major ones, the ones that you should be most concerned with.

Switch Lights Versus Port Lights

There's a couple of these lights. These first two lights are going to be more generally associated with the switch as a whole, whereas a few of these are going to be more associated with the port itself. And then you've got a button on the front that is the mode. What I mean by this is these first two lights are indicators of whether the switch is doing, versus these four indicators indicate what the port is doing.

What we saw is that the switch had these lights above the ports right here. We've got port one which is right here, and this is the light indicator for port one. We've got port two right here, and this is the light indicator for port two. The light indicators are actually arrows, so this one, the port one, points up because the top port is port one. And then this indicator, it's a triangle that points down, and that's because port two is the one on the bottom. So we see that this is port three and four, this is port 5 and 6. These lights, these little triangles that point up or down, will change depending on what we have selected.

System, RPS, and the Mode Button

The system just lets us know some basic power and functionality of the switch. The RPS, or redundant power supply, will let us know what is happening with the power, so we can see that this switch is on, it's lit up right now. And then we see the stat, duplex and speed listed down here.

When we hit the mode button right here, it will actually toggle between these different options right here. We press it and then we'll go down to the next one, we press it again and we'll go down to the next one, and we select stat, duplex, speed, PoE. We'll select those different options.

On the 3750 — so I've got two models here — we see the mode button right here, we see the system and XPS, because the power that's on these, it's got dual power, and so it says XPS rather than RPS. But then we've got stat, speed, duplex. It's actually horizontal, and on this one our ports' LEDs are at the bottom there, and port one, which would start right here, is this first one, and it actually has a one written on that LED. And port two down here is right here, and those LEDs are in the shape of RJ45. So the 3750 versus the 2960, we've got a little different light pattern, but the functionality is very similar.

The Four Port Modes

Now these four lights that we cycle through: when we press mode we'll cycle through these four lights. If we've got the first one, stat, selected, then the light on each of the ports indicates the port status, and that's when you know if it's active, then it starts flashing. The duplex lets us know what the duplex setting is on each of the ports. The speed indicates the speed at which those ports are operating at. And the PoE lets us know what the power over ethernet capabilities of each of those ports are, or what status those ports are in.

So let's take a look a little more in depth into those four statuses and see what different options we have with those, or what they actually indicate.

LED States

The LED itself can actually have several different states. It could just be off, or it could be green, or it could be amber, or it could be blinking green or blinking amber, or it could be alternating between the green and the amber. Each one of those is going to say something different about that port.

If we have stat selected — that means the stat would light up right here — then what would happen is if it was off, the LED would be off. If the link was up, then it would be green. If it's active and things are happening on it, it will flash with the activity, so you'll see it flashing there. If it's blocked, and we'll talk about blocked ports later on, then it will be amber or amber blinking. Or if there's some sort of fault, something's wrong with it, then it will be alternating between the green and the amber.

We press the mode button, and when we press the mode button then it will shift down. We press this mode button right here, it'll shift down to duplex. When it's in duplex, then it's going to indicate that it's half duplex if it's off, or full duplex if it's green. Pretty basic, you got two options there, so the rest of this is not applicable. It doesn't have any amber lights or blinking green lights.

We press the mode button again and then we have now selected the speed. If it's off, it's at 10 megabits per second. If it's on, it's at a hundred. So if it's green it's a hundred, if it's blinking green then we're at a thousand, or gigabit. And then nothing for the amber colors.

Then we press the mode button once again, and then it selects the port speed. If nothing is happening, it just means that there's no PoE device attached to it. If it is the green, that means the PoE is on. If it's flashing — well, it won't flash green. If it's amber, it's disabled, and if it's blinking amber then it's a fault, and then alternating just means it's denied. We'll talk more about PoE later on, but just know that you've got these different settings.

As you press the mode button, then the port indicators at the top will change the information — or the top of the 2960, it's the bottom of the 3750 — those port indicators will change and flag different things that's happening on that port.

Switch-Level Indicators

So there's the status of the individual ports, but there's also the status of the switch itself and things that are happening on the switch, so let's talk about a couple of those LEDs, such as the RPS. RPS is redundant power supply. Redundant power supply is the extra little connector on the back that you may not have seen before. You've got the regular kind of connector that possibly uses the same type of plug-in as a computer would use or a monitor would use, and then you've got the other little plug that says DC power on it, and that is a redundant power supply.

This LED indicator right here tells us the status of that redundant power supply. If it's off, it's off. If it's green, it's ready. If it's blinking green, it's not available. If it's amber, it's fault tolerant, and if it's blinking amber, it's failed, failed RPS. So it just gives us the status of RPS at any given time.

Then we have the PoE light. The PoE light we do not see on the 2960, because it doesn't have PoE capability. We do see it on this 3750, and so it is something that we can select when we press the mode and it cycles through the different ones. When we have it selected, it's just green, and so that lets us know that the ports are indicating their PoE status. But when we do not have it selected, it tells us some additional information. When it's not selected and it's off, it just means that there's no issues. But if it is blinking amber, that means that there is some sort of port issue that you probably need to get in and explore what that port issue is.