Rosewill RGS-108P POE Gigabit Network Switch

A Closer look continued

The Rosewill RGS-108P POE Gigabit Network Switch is an eight port POE capable switch. It has the capacity to provide gigabit wirespeeds on all eight ports. Each port is auto sensing for 10/100/1000 for network speeds and are all MDI/MDX sensing.

For POE, it is a different story. The Rosewill RGS-108P POE Gigabit Network Switch can provide POE on ports 1-4 or POE+ on ports 1 & 2. The main difference in POE & POE+ is the amount of power per port. POE can supply 15.4 watts of power per port and POE+ can supply 30 watts of power per port. We will see why the port limitations in just a few minutes.

Visual feedback for the Rosewill RGS-108P POE Gigabit Network Switch is provided by a bank of LED indicators to the left of the switch ports. Link and activity indicators as well as POE indicators are provided. The loop light indicates a switching loop has been detected, such as the switch being plugged into itself.

Pulling the cover off of the Rosewill RGS-108P POE Gigabit Network Switch reveals the innards. As you can see there’s not a whole lot to the switch. There are two main ICs that I want to talk a little bit about.

The chipset that controls the packet switching portion of the Rosewill RGS-108P POE Gigabit Network Switch is controlled by a RealTek RTL 8730. According to RealTek’s website the 8730 does in fact support a managed switch as long as the vendor supplies the proper additional components for the switch and the interface in which it is configured. However, Rosewill did not add this feature in order to keep costs down. If you really want to get your network geek on, you can read more about the RTL 8730 HERE.

The POE function of the switch is controlled by a Microsemi PD69104B POE manager. The PD69104b supports both IEEE802.3AF and IEEE802.3AT (just a fancy way of saying POE and POE+). The PD60104b supports Cisco device detection, soft power start, and internal thermal protection. POE has a voltage range of  44 to 57 DC volts. Most newer Cisco Voice over IP phones run on POE+ where as IP cameras tend to run on POE. Each device is different. Make sure to check the specifications and plan accordingly.

Power is supplied to the Rosewill RGS-108P POE Gigabit Network Switch via a 75 watt power supply. According to the board, the power supply is manufactured by skypowercom however, a quick trip to the URL lead me nowhere nor could I find any other references to the power supply board or the manufacture. This power supply can deliver 64.32 watts max with POE or POE+. With only 64 watts available for POE or POE+ this is why POE is limited to 4 ports and POE+ to 2 ports.