How and What to Check when buying used cisco switches

ianissuperman

Hi guys i will be buying 2 3560 tomorrow and i dont know how to check the hardware and what to check any inputs? by the way im using it for my home lab for my CCNA/CCNP

ianissuperman

anyone please help

benford266

Iv recently purchased a couple of router and switches and all that i would recommend is that you ask them to send you a show version. I purchased a 2611xm from ebay and when it arrived it was just a 2611 so the rest i have bough i got them to send me a show version before.

HAMP

I think this is a tuff one to answer in a short simple post. It also doesn’t help that you don’t know much about Cisco switches and routers.
If you are buying from someone whom you meet on craigslist, that makes it harder to test out in a public environment. When I bought my (4) 2950 from a guy off of craigslist, I truly was hoping that at least two of them worked perfectly… lol
It’s when you get home that you can test them out, but again, since you are new to it. It is going to be a learning process for you.

Fortunately Cisco switches are NOT junk and they work for the most part, but things can go wrong such as having a bad port or won’t post.

Edificer

Ask port POST results

davenull

show version
sh inventory
sh environment

I'd say these three should give you most of the relevant information.

ianissuperman

i will meet him and do a fast testing of the switches ... so ill do show version sh inventory and sh environment.... what is port POST result ?

Simrid

If you can't power the switches on and you're can literally just take a look at it's externals. I would just do some basic things such as checking for damage, make sure it generally looks in good condition and not many signs of loads of use.