Like this:

**UPDATE 4/28/2009**

Got another SD2008 in today.  The power light came on but no link/activity lights.  It had what looked like to be the same circuit board, however the 270uF 25V caps were in different locations. They were all swollen.  The 1000uF 25V caps were fine as they were on the previous one.  Used my last 4 270′s from the batch I bought to fix it and am writing this post across it now.  What took a great deal of time before took me about 15 mins this time.  Partly I was already set up, partly I knew I was best off using my $10 radio shack desoldering iron, adding a little solder to get more flux in there and then extracting much more cleanly.  Then work on the holes a bit.  Finally push the new caps through and solder all in place.

An easy fix.  I’ll keep my eyes open for dead out-of-warranty Linksys switches in the future.  I just bought a big batch of assorted low-voltage capacitors that should come in a week or so.

**ORIGINAL POST**

Lately I’ve noticed that the Linksys Gigabit switches we’ve sold last year are dying at an alarming rate.  Usually all ports will light up or some will not work.  I took one small 8 port (I have to say, most have been the rackmount 16′s), cracked it open, saw the problem and actually fixed it. Yay!

First the problem: on this one it would work for about 10 mins or so, get warm, and then all the lights would go green and nada.

Now we have to open the thing. On the back where the ports are you have to remove the plastic bezel.  There are two metal tabs holding it in on either side.  I used a small flathead to pry it out enough to pull the plastic bezel out one side at a time.  Next remove the plastic cover off the front.  I used the little plastic prying tools I use to take apart laptops, but a screwdriver would probably work here too.  Just press down on the metal casing enough to let the cover move forward.  Do this on the top and the bottom and it will slide off easily.  Next take the top and slide it off.  If you look on the sides you can see how the top and bottom interlock.  Finally remove the screws and you now can work on the circuit board.

On mine, two of the 470uF capacitors were swollen.  So I replaced all 4 of them.  I’ve marked them with red X’s in the photos.  Make sure to get the polarity right. It is nicely marked on the board.  If you forget just look at th smaller caps.  I had to add a little solder in order to remove the existing components.  This is one of those times my cheap $10 radioshack desoldering iron came in handy.  The two caps nearest the inside can be a little bit of a pain to get to and I never got mine to seat quite all the way down due to shoddy work on my part, but it fit fine back in the case and now works like a champ.

I’m shocked that Linksys was still suffering from this problem and have been generally unimpressed with the quality of their products the last two years, even for cheap network equipment.  But with about $5 worth of parts and a little bit of time I have a nice little switch to replace my aged 5 port 10/100 on my workbench.

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