I have a dell PowerConnect 5524P that is having an odd issue. On a fairly regular basis, I check the status of the PoE system on my switch. The PoE ports almost always list their status as Fault, and when I plug in a PoE device it will not get power
What that means, according to Dell, is that something is short circuiting the power system. I have found that if I power cycle the switch, the faults on all the ports will clear. After the reboot, they will have a status that indicates they are ready to deliver power. After some amount of time ( I don't know how long exactly) all the ports that aren't delivering power will fault.
What I have taken to doing, which seems to keep the problem at bay, is to disable PoE on all the ports and only turn it on when a device specifically needs it.
Is this anything wrong with this? Shouldn't I be able to leave all the ports on auto and allow the switch to decide if PoE is needed for a specific port?