In article ,
"Steven Campbell" writes:

Ah right, that makes sense if I've got this right?
12V is being supplied but it gets changed to 5V inside the Switch?
The regulator isn't working correctly so hence why the 12V power supplies
don't operate it.
Makes you wonder why they needed a 5V regulator inside and they couldn't
just supply a 5V power supply.

Folks who design the switch generally can't relay on a specific
power supply, as it will be supplied with a different one in
every country. In the US, they usually come with a very small
SMPSU built in the plug. In the UK, they come with a sodding
great unregulated wall-wart. If you want reliable operation
in the face of such variables, not to mention people also
changing the supplied PSU, you need to design your own PSU.
Point-of-use SMPSUs are often the norm throughout larger
commercial PC's (such as 4 and 8 socket systems), where the
main PSU generates 48V, and tiny SMPSUs transform this down
to levels from 1 to 5V for specific components, including the
CPU. This resulted in high volumes, lowering cost, size, and
excellent reliability, with the introduction of megahertz
switcher moduless. You'll find these inside standard PC's now
too, to generate the low CPU and memory voltages.

The other common failure with small netgear switches which get
moved around is that the power connector often breaks free of
the circuit board.

I wonder if that is why all the recent GS108's come with a 7V power supply!

When I first bought the small 5 and 8 port switches (and WiFi
access points), many of them ran from 5V or 12V, and I would
power them from a spare disk drive connector. It's got quite
hard to find 5 or 12V powered ones nowadays.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]