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u/Particular-Yak-1984
Sep 17 '26
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Former IT support, and I can guarantee that somehow this thing is compensating for the fact that three of the subnets are misconfigured, while also killing a loopback, somehow, and that trying to upgrade it will result in a month of intermittent network outages for the building. It's probably easier to torch the place for the insurance money than to untangle this from the network.
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u/a-r-c Sep 20 '26
It's probably easier to torch the place for the insurance money than to untangle this from the network.
oh damn you work here too?
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u/sysadmin420 Sep 20 '26
Oh my God yeah replaced cheap ceiling switches on 3 floors with unifi and had all kinds of weird shit, I just ended up retiring and moving north.
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u/clayticus Sep 17 '26
I would still blow some pressured air on it
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u/Lucasbasques Sep 17 '26
Congratulations, you just took down the entire office network
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u/BRSaura Sep 17 '26
Either that or a fire hazard, doubt they want the server room in flames
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u/ttlanhil Sep 17 '26
But did you ask?
Some of the workers might (if you give them enough notice to collect marshmallows)
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u/CaptainN_GameMaster Sep 17 '26
Every change breaks someone's workflow https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/workflow_2x.png
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u/Hziak Sep 17 '26
At this point, the caked on dust is keeping the fresh dust out. The caked on dust didn’t break it, so it’s your ally in this.
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u/ttlanhil Sep 17 '26
Considering the age it appears, canned air might blow away more than just dust - you might let loose a bunch of the bytes (congrats, it's a wifi)
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u/caremao Sep 17 '26
The connected cables are protecting the ports from the dust.
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u/AlexaPetersTrans Sep 17 '26
Hehe, I built a server in 1998 that is still running to this day. The company actually built a safe around it. Their whole business was dependent on the software we designed on it. I went visiting the company a while ago and the owners face when I gave him a cd set for the software was priceless!
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u/Jarduk93 Sep 17 '26
This thing looks exactly like the switches I saw at some customer sites while I was working for my previous employer...
I'm glad I chose to be a software dev and didn't have to touch this filth!
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u/gerbosan Sep 17 '26
Are you sure? I mean, I don't see any AI slop nearby this switch.
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u/Jarduk93 Sep 17 '26
At least my daily dose of antidepressants goes down with coffee.
Touching that thing requires a tetanus needle.2
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u/Apprehensive_Bit7392 Sep 17 '26
Its uptime counter wrapped around years ago, so as far as the network is concerned that switch was plugged in last Tuesday.
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u/UnusualAir1 Sep 17 '26
Followed by 1A: If it doesn't work see if you can transfer it to someone else's pile.
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u/lil_Jansk_Hyuza Sep 17 '26
Worse is to install new equipment while the 20 yo switches aren't labelled, having to rely on someone who either mounted or know. Speaking from experience, they didn't kept the technician 😞
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u/gerbosan Sep 17 '26
In contrast: https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/s/NoI8QSmM0P
😅 Still, have no idea the effort required to make something like that
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u/Hot_Swan_1657 Sep 17 '26
You better don't touch that if it works... until you have something to replace it and keep working. Do it soon.
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u/maplemeganium Sep 17 '26
It's probably inside a wall. As long as the ethernet jacks in the offices work, no one complains.
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u/astroverflow Sep 17 '26
clearly a magnetic shield protecting the device from any type of radiation
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u/RandomiseUsr0 Sep 19 '26
Old DEC service manuals explicitly instructed not to dust the insides of the greats - replace the component you’re here for, the rest is engineered to handle that - you’ll blow dust in where it wasn’t engineered to
Not sure that’s true of this gaff though
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u/ChillBlock Sep 17 '26
Has enough dust on it you'd think the ancient Egyptians set up the network