Asus GigaX 1024P Ethernet Switch

A few years ago, I needed a number of rackmount switches. They needed at least 24 ports each, and here's the kicker: While I needed most of the ports limited to 100mbps, I needed at least one gigabit uplink port on each switch. The Asus GigaX 1024P seeemed to fit the bill nicely - QoS, VLAN support, jumbo frames, etc.. And they were relatively inexpensive.

They have worked quite well for the past few years, until recently. First, one switch started randomly dropping packets, dropping ports, or going in and out entirely. I opened it up, and sure enough - one of the capacitors on the power supply board had blown up. I replaced it with a higher-quality capacitor, put it back in, and it's worked fine.

Not long ago, a second switch started exhibiting the same symptoms, so I opened it up... same cap blown up. I ordered enough GOOD capacitors (Nichicon HZ series) to replace all of the output capacitors on all of the switches, and spent a day swapping a switch, replacing caps, and repeating.

What I found surprised me: EVERY SINGLE SWITCH had the same capacitors at least bulged, even in the switches that were still working. 100% failure rate in 3 years is pretty extreme, particularly for something presumably used in a professional environment. It seems that Asus takes the same approach with rackmount switches that is so common with motherbords - that is, "Save fifty cents in capacitors, cut the lifespan by 90% - it will be out of warranty when it fails anyway!"

Since I replaced all of the capacitors, the switches still function perfectly - and, since I spent the whopping amount of $1.80 per switch for three quality capacitors, they will likely function for decades to come. However, unless you want to pull out a soldering iron, I would recommend that you stay away from these, and all switches from Asus.