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alarm noise 1140e

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z3r0cool

MIS
Mar 12, 2012
12
US
Does anyone know what causes an 1140e handset to make a buzzing/alarm noise? This has happened on and off at our remote offices, but it's been happening with more frequency lately. In the middle of a call the phone will just start making a loud buzzing noise, annoying everybody in the office, until it's unplugged and then plugged in again.
 
Phones do go bad... Especially the 11xx series

Swap it out

ddcommllc.com
Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS
 
Ah, so there's no particular significance to the alarm?
 
Is it an actual alarm?

Besides ringing I've never witnessed a nortel phone set off an alarm...



ddcommllc.com
Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS
 
It's a little hard to describe, but it's a constant loud buzzing sound. To me it sounds like an alarm, but while on a call the noise will start coming out of the speakerphone randomly, whether they were actually using the speakerphone or not.
 
Yea definitely swap the phone and report back

ddcommllc.com
Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS
 
Found these forums quite useful in the past as a guest, but this is my first post. Thanks in advance for your help.

We are experiencing the same issue in our remote office with loud buzzing humming tone on half of our 6 1140E phones, which requires a power cycle to fix. Occurs very intermittently, 2-3 times in the last two weeks, when issue began. I am wondering if it could be related to the power issue described in this post, [URL unfurl="true"]http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1648780[/url], and in this notice from Avaya: [URL unfurl="true"]https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100142092[/url]

There is no direct mention of the loud buzzing symptom but broader description of power issues that ultimately result in the unit not powering on, which we haven't had, at least yet. Although if it is this issue, seems there is a relatively straightforward part swap fix from Avaya. Let me know if you have any knowledge of these being the same issue.

We recently moved from 10/100 non-PoE switch to gig switch with PoE at the office a couple weeks ago when the problems began, so that may be useful in identifying issue. Checked power output history on new switch and don't see any issues there. We have another remote office with 10 1140E phones and same new PoE gig switch that has none of these symptoms.

Thanks.
 
Hi stwil! Do you have PC's connected to the 1140 phones? If you do and if they use 100Mbit speed while the connection to the PoE switch is at Gbit, it could be possibly related to an issue different speeds used by the network ports. Configure the PoE switch or the phones to use 100Mbps to match the speeds of both (PoE switch and PC) connections.
 
Thanks ucxguy for your response. We don't have any PC's connected to the 1140 phones. We tried going to down to 100 mbit speeds, as well as disabling POE on the switch to no avail, and are still having incidences of the alarm / buzzing issue on the phones. Also, issue is present on warranty replacement phones from Avaya, as well as newer version Avaya-branded 1140's at this site. Thanks in advance for any further troubleshooting suggestions.
 
Well we found our solution: replaced the whole shebang with Toshiba. Zero problems since then. The PBX (BCM 400) was manufactured in 2003 so it was at the end of its lifecycle anyway.
 
Hi stwil!
I was curious if you managed to find a solution since my reply in March. I am sorry to hear you are still experiencing this issue.

About 2 years ago, I think I experienced the problem you described a few times with an early version of the E-MetroTel's UCx system. The symptom was a very loud buzzing noise generated by the phone (very unpleasant I must say) that could be stopped only by power cycling the phone. The problem did not happen on any other phone type (i2000, 1100 or 1200 series) - it appeared to be an 1140E specific issue. The explanation I got at that time was that a specific sequence of messages with specific timing somehow causes it. After a software update of the UCx system, we haven't experienced this problem again. BTW - the 1140E that exhibited this problem has been my primary phone for the past 2 years.

My personal guess is that this is a firmware or hardware bug specific to 1140E that is triggered either by a malformed message or by a specific sequence of messages from the server (BCM in your case). It looks like your system is configured in a way that triggers the problem relatively frequently. With no help from Avaya, the only option (if you want to keep your BCM and not go to Toshiba as suggested above) is to experiment a bit more with the configuration.

You could try the following changes (probably one at a time):
1. If you use the G.729 codec for the phones, change it to G.711 (the G.729 requires much more DSP power - if this issue is DSP performance related, it might make a difference)
2. If you use 2 frames per packet, try to go to 3 frames per packet (the difference is 50 packets per second sent/received by the phone vs. 33 packets per second - it might help if the issue is related to the phone's network stack performance)
3. Try to change the VAD setting (voice activity detection = silence suppression) setting - if it's off, turn in on or vice versa

Well - good look for sure. [smile]
 
UCXGuy,

Appreciate your response! -- we will definitely try those things. Nearly tearing my hair out at this point with this problem, and also working on getting support from Avaya flowing. I'll keep the thread updated with any developments. Thanks.
 
Hello,

Regarding suggested changes from UCXGuy:
1. change from G.729 to G.711 -- tested going to G.711ulaw and G.711alaw and incident still recurred
2. Was already set to 3 fpp so didn't change setting
3. Disabled VAD checkbox, and the incident recurred

We also tried putting back the old unmanaged 10/100 switch for the phones and it didn't make a difference.

Z3r0cool's 'solution' does look attractive in light of this ordeal, but I'm not sure it is an option for us yet. We have only had the system 3.5 years, and is still under warranty for another 1.5 years. I also saw that the BCM 50 has recently reached end of life, but is still supported by Avaya for 3 more years.

Regards
 
It's actually supported until 2019 if its At 6.0

ddcommllc.com
Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS

"Will work for stars
 
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