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Tapping into STW expertise.
I've got a problem with my home network. One piece of equipment has an intermittent fault. Feels like it might be an oversensitive overload protection in the power supply.
Bought/installed May 2018
First noted failure August 2018
Unattended until October 2018 - observed failed on return
Clusters of failures on a few days between October and now i.e. if it fails on any given day, it tends to fail again after being reset; after a while it gets stable again and works for weeks at a time.
The item is an optical to ethernet converter with a separate dedicated power supply. All electrically connected equipment is within 1m and is coming off the same ring main.
Today is one of its bad days. On its bad days, surge protectors don't make any difference.
So I reckon from time to time the mains supply to the building isn't as clean as is ideal and the power supply has a hard time and shuts down. It doesn't reset until it is disconnected from the power and left to sit and think for a while.
How do I get any sensible outcome from a warranty claim on this? The goods don't work *reliably* but even in my environment they can work well for weeks... until they don't.
There are two parties you can approach for recourse on this, the retailer and the manufacturer.
Did you contact the retailer in August or October 2018 and make them aware of the fault at all? That would have been within 6 months of the purchase and the onus would be on the retailer to show the unit wasn't faulty. This is nothing to do with any manufacturer warranty, these are statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015
If you did tell the retailer within the 6 months then I'd say exercise your rights under Consumer Rights Act 2015. If not, you can still use Consumer Rights Act 2015 but you have to show the unit is faulty. You might find in that case that the warranty claim route is easier.
A warranty is generally with the manufacturer, not the retailer (unless the retailer provided one or the retailer and manufacturer are one and the same)
Personally I'd just tell the manufacturer what's been going on and see what the response is. Only if they reject your explanation would I worry about demonstrating the fault
Definitely worth talking to the supplier and manufacturer. They often have some weasel clause where they say if they can't find a fault you are liable for the costs. I know Sony do this so I've taken them off my list, but you might get lucky. If you don't get much satisfaction I'd consider a new power supply (assuming it is a plug in brick of some kind), a decent 3rd party one may be better than the original and not that expensive
@dmorts is absolutely bang on.
The liability lies with the retailer. However you might get better results dealing directly with the manufacturer (or alternatively they're well within their rights to tell you to bugger off). The retailer however cannot insist that you talk to the manufacturer, legally it's their problem to resolve.
Say for arguments sake there is NFF on return to the supplier. What then?
Years ago my dad purchased a B&O colour TV. Great set, worked well, then after a few months, it would spaz out and go to standby. Often the picture would just go like there was no signal and it would pop onto standby. Sometimes it would be ok for weeks. He took it back to B&O dealer who sent it away and NFF. It never really got sorted and actually spent one christmas in the Gloucester head office on extended test, returned NFF. Eventually he tired of it and because the warranty had expired he gave up and bought a Sony instead, no issues.
We had a suspicion that the mains supply might have had periods where it was "dirty" and the TV was reacting to it.
Is it possible to swap out the suspected device for an alternative to see if the problem goes away?
Say for arguments sake there is NFF on return to the supplier. What then?
Then you're into replacement / refund territory.
You could try a powering it through a small UPS which would give it a clean supply (probably a last resort though).
Thanks for the good advice. I'll at least get a call on record with the retailer and probably the manufacturer too.
The kit is a niche, proprietary, plastic optical fibre network so not easy to substitute out and not easy to rely on future supply. I did it like this to terminate an outbuilding office straight through to a network rack in the main building roof space. This was a wife-friendly way to have an invisible installation. Not so wife-friendly when I have to tear out the walls (again) to replace the cabling runs. Wireless is a no-go in these buildings.
I work from home. My phone calls go through it. My remote desktop goes through it. I designed in redundancy except for this single component. When it is working for months on end without issue, it is brilliant. On days when it drops repeatedly it puts my livelihood at risk.
Longer term, my office will be relocating to the main house. If I can get one more reliable year out of this it will have served its purpose. I'll get some spares on hand. I will reconfigure the kit I have to spread the load a bit better. That should get me through.
Why not wireless?
We have a large sprawling house with thick walls and have found that changing to a [Google] mesh WiFi system in has worked very very well indeed - not cheap though if you need a lot of WiFi points.
Just out of interest why did you run optical to the outbuilding rather than cat5/6 ethernet (which certainly would have been fast enough)?
Just out of interest why did you run optical to the outbuilding rather than cat5/6 ethernet
Or run one of each side by side? (I know that's not helpful now)
Morning Mr State the Obvious here ,
Feels like it might be an oversensitive overload protection in the power supply
Have you determined the correct supply for the load, do you have any redundancy in your supply? As stated previously a UPS with 25 % reserve would seem like your best option.
Why not wireless?
The walls are 1 metre thick stone.
Just out of interest why did you run optical to the outbuilding rather than cat5/6 ethernet
Honest answer is that it was a vanity project. Some concerns about surge protection for buried conducting cable.
Have you determined the correct supply for the load, do you have any redundancy in your supply
I checked back on this last night. The psu is a modular unit that attaches to the kit it is powering. It is rated to drive three units but I am powering one.
When it failed yesterday the media converter was warm to the touch. I ran it powered on the bench with no load and it didn't get warm in the same way.
I'm reviewing the thermal aspects of the installation. I suspect I can use one less channel for link aggregation and drop the thermal load by ~25%.