Wiring, Power requirements, and drops with 5410/5420

[573dawn]

Hi All, I'm baaacckk...After 2 1/2 months of grueling misery and a nightmare I can't wake up from, I am to the point of despondence. For those of you who have been following this dreadful saga, and the new readers to my never-ending posts of despair, I have been thinking...

What are the odds that the 5410/5420 units need more power than the old wiring in a building built by a cheapskate are capable of providing? I have been looking for a power requirement so we can test the actual ports for output, but I can't seem to find a power requirement for the phones.

The drops have continued, although the fades are gone. What makes this VERY suspicious is that we have added 4 POTS lines to this building increasing the total available POTS lines to 6. We have the main number there rolling over to the additional POTS lines, and yet they are still reporting high levels of drops.

Even more interesting, one person has now told me that they get drops on incoming, EVERY INCOMING that lasts more than 2:30-300 minutes, but not outgoing, and they HAVE been instructed to use the POTS prefix for outgoing calls.

We do now know that the grounding at that building is insufficient, nothing in the entire building is truly grounded, electrical included. Not only that, but it appears that, on every pole looked at outside, the ground wires have been cut and none of the poles are grounded.

Also, some time back someone mentioned IROBs, I have not seen any IROBs at the trouble location, and we DID have a lightening strike that wiped out an IP400 unit some time back. The BP replaced it, had us add a UPS to the system, but never mentioned IROBs or any other protection specifit to the lines.

Still grasping at straws...

<sigh>...Thanks, you guessed who, it's Dawn!

 

[573dawn]

make that 2:30 to 3:00, NOT 300 minutes <g>

 

[Gibsonic]

hi dawn.

sorry for your continue troubles. like my anecdote from your other thread, I can feel your pain.

You may have to go Ben Franklin and install your own grounding rod and fix it yourself!

So are the POTS lines all loop-start or ground-start? if they are the later and there isn't proper grounding from the poles to the building to the equipment that could definitely be a point of concern.

The incoming vs outgoing difference makes me think there is something wrong with the CO switching equipment or possibly the trunk cards in the IPO.

You are going to have to continue your process of elimination to get this narrowed down. You could have a flaky config or just a messed up IPO hardware.

The power and grounding situation has to get resolved. Even with good grounding you have to have good surge/spike protection. The UPS can to this but with bad grounding all bets are off.

 

[573dawn]

Gibsonic, thanks. When he told me that the building isn't even properly grounded, I just rolled my eyes. He is hopefully going to get started on fixing that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my BP wants to upgrade the system tomorrow. I am petrified....

 

[tlpeter]

Why are you petrified ?
they have all night


ACA - Implement IP Office
ACA - Voice Services Management
______________
Women and cats can do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea!

 

[573dawn]

tlpeter, yes, but I have to stay for it! Keep in mind these are the same people who initially installed it <g>...

 

[tlpeter]

is it a big site ?
if it is not too big then let them default the unit and built it up from the begin

and being there can be good
make it late and tomorrow stay in bed
if there are problems it won't be yours


ACA - Implement IP Office
ACA - Voice Services Management
______________
Women and cats can do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea!

 

[573dawn]

tlpeter, I would LOVE that, but I don't know if it would be the thing to do or not. We have 4 sites, close to 100 people, numerous HGs, piles of direct fax numbers, so it would potentially take more than overnight!

Not to mention that the BP configured it wrong in the first place, which is why I found this forum

Any idea how long it will take? They earmarked an hour...

 

[Gibsonic]

for just the upgrade an hour should be fine...

to re-config your system? that could take a bit longer.

I would recommend loading up the 4.0.7 manager and work on re-building your config offline. Then if you are still having problems after the upgrade, back-up old config, upload fresh new config and cross your fingers, say a prayer and light a candle.

 

[573dawn]

Gibsonic, I wish I knew how to do that! Unfortunately, despite all I have learned, I don't think I could do one from the ground up.

Have I mentioned that at our trouble site there is effectively no grounding in the building? Or that the ground wires on all the telephone poles have been cut? That is supposed to be corrected over the next couple days, and if we are still having problems, I am going to start moving routers around...

 

[Gibsonic]

it's all just point and click no command line at all!

hopefully just fixing the grounding issue will make all your troubles go away. it may be possible that the lack of proper grounding could have done some damage to hardware. electricity will find a way to ground itself somehow...but that could be at the expense of a circuit board or power supply in some equipment.

 

[573dawn]

Gibsonic, yes, that's what I'm afraid of. We've already had one lightening strike that took out a DS unit. I have yet to discover if anything else was seriously negatively impacted. That's why I am thinking of swapping routers around.

One day, hopefully soon, we will get this right. If we ever do I am going to take a week off and do nothing <g>.