Green Ethernet / Energy Efficient Ethernet (IEEE 802.3az) and Control4

[Irishguy42]

Hello all,

I am seemingly not finding information regarding Control4's stance on Green Ethernet/EEE, but I assume it's the same as Crestron/Audinate/etc. in that we should turn off Green Ethernet/EEE on all ports connected to equipment in the Control4 system?

Scenario: Had a potential client today that we were looking at, and they had a lot of older touchscreens (system is 2.9.1) and several have been falling off with their connection to Director. There are other issues with their system that could be related, but these touchscreens are being fed by two TRENDnet TPE-TG160g (unmanaged PoE switch). There are three released versions of this switch, with the most recent not having 802.3az listed among the standards, but the previous two (now discontinued) versions did have them listed in their specs. I would have to get serial numbers and call TRENDnet to get exact info from them, but in the meantime, to better prep a Plan B, would it be safe to assume that these switches would need to be swapped out to something different?

[-defunct-]

I would disable 802.3az EEE. It is supposed to save power on inactive ports and any 'smart' feature like that could cause connection issues since the Control4 system expects immediate and consistent connections between devices.

I'd also be wary of dropping the power available to POE devices.

If an unmanaged switch cannot have the feature turned off, I would recommend replacing with a managed switch.

[Irishguy42]

38 minutes ago, Dunamivora said:

I would disable 802.3az EEE. It is supposed to save power on inactive ports and any 'smart' feature like that could cause connection issues since the Control4 system expects immediate and consistent connections between devices.

I'd also be wary of dropping the power available to POE devices.

If an unmanaged switch cannot have the feature turned off, I would recommend replacing with a managed switch.

I had assumed as much. I'll just have to double check with TRENDnet to make sure the version switch the client has installed isn't a discontinued version with EEE/Green Ethernet.