I’m visiting family and they have asked me to look at a 1993-vintage Norstar 3x8 at a local non-profit which is misbehaving. It has very low transmit volume on both lines (from all sets), and is unable to dial out from one line (seems like DTMF doesn’t register).
This is a relatively new problem, although apparently the second trunk port (202) hasn’t worked for some time - they have been using 201 and 203 for several years successfully.
The low transmit volume has been present for a month or so. I’m not sure how long since it was possible to dial out on the one line.
Things I’ve tried:
- connecting directly to the outgoing lines with an analog handset
- both lines sound fine to people I call
- no issues with DTMF dial-out on either line
- swapping sets
- most of the sets are newer (charcoal) M7208 and all behave the same
- an older (beige) M7310 behaves the same way
This seems to me like the KSU is slowly dying, but I don’t really want to reset it in case it stops working entirely. They don’t have anyone local supporting/servicing the system and I haven’t been able to find anyone local who will respond, other than the local phone company who are expensive and fairly useless (they just want to sell a new VOIP system for $5000+).
It’s running DR5 software if that’s relevant.
Is this a common problem? I’ve seen reference to electrolytic capacitors on the trunk lines causing similar low transmit volume problems on larger CICS and MICS systems but not on 3x8.
Any suggestions on next steps? Anything else I should investigate to further diagnose?
I’m tempted to buy a refurbished 3x8 DR5 or DR5.1 KSU and try a swap, but I know almost nothing about Norstar beyond what I’ve read over the weekend... They are using very basic features, no voicemail, no feature programming, just multiple extensions and transferring calls, so it appears the reprogramming should be straightforward.
This is a relatively new problem, although apparently the second trunk port (202) hasn’t worked for some time - they have been using 201 and 203 for several years successfully.
The low transmit volume has been present for a month or so. I’m not sure how long since it was possible to dial out on the one line.
Things I’ve tried:
- connecting directly to the outgoing lines with an analog handset
- both lines sound fine to people I call
- no issues with DTMF dial-out on either line
- swapping sets
- most of the sets are newer (charcoal) M7208 and all behave the same
- an older (beige) M7310 behaves the same way
This seems to me like the KSU is slowly dying, but I don’t really want to reset it in case it stops working entirely. They don’t have anyone local supporting/servicing the system and I haven’t been able to find anyone local who will respond, other than the local phone company who are expensive and fairly useless (they just want to sell a new VOIP system for $5000+).
It’s running DR5 software if that’s relevant.
Is this a common problem? I’ve seen reference to electrolytic capacitors on the trunk lines causing similar low transmit volume problems on larger CICS and MICS systems but not on 3x8.
Any suggestions on next steps? Anything else I should investigate to further diagnose?
I’m tempted to buy a refurbished 3x8 DR5 or DR5.1 KSU and try a swap, but I know almost nothing about Norstar beyond what I’ve read over the weekend... They are using very basic features, no voicemail, no feature programming, just multiple extensions and transferring calls, so it appears the reprogramming should be straightforward.
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