The 4 LAN led's and the 1 POWER led stay lit all the time. The firewall doesn't respond to anything and the reset button wont reset the unit.

Can I fix this without sending it in for repairs?

<a target='_blank' href='https://img380.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img00141zf2.jpg'><img src='https://img380.imageshack.us/img380/9131/img00141zf2.th.jpg' border='0'/></a>

No. Just replace it.

-Hal

You can replace it without sending it in for repairs by buying something else

Not sure how much they cost but they are kind of over-blown linksys routers in my opinion. I have a hard time justifying anyone buying one of these. The whole licensing scheme just kind of turns my stomach.

I didn't know about the licensing. I see these things all over, CGs love must them. Why are they so popular?

Never mind. I went to their site and see why CGs love them.


-Hal

Hal, there is not much special they do, but I think their firewalls are beefier than Linksys. I see them in small businesses a lot.

Well thanks, I guess. Sad though it is, I see it probably wont come back to life (I tried shaking it and tapping it on a counter). Maybe theres a magic switch under that sticker which reads "WARRANTY VOID IF REMOVED"

If I can remedy this problem I'll post it here for you Sonicwall aficionados.

Thanks for the input guys.

Looks like a combination router with an AV like McAfee built in. Of course anti-virus and spam filtering could be done elsewhere.

I see where the licensing comes in. If you want it to do anything more than what it does out of the box you pay extra.

-Hal

If I can remedy this problem I'll post it here for you Sonicwall aficionados.

I doubt that there are any.

-Hal

Yeah, not only do you pay out the nose for a router, you then have to log into sonicwall's online service and buy an annual license just to make it keep working (referring to just the bare router part). Heaven forbid you want it to do anything listed in the marketing/advertising that you probably based your decision on. The licenses can easily cost a couple grand per year, not to mention all the issues these things have.

Now, to answer your question why CG's love these things:
1) It's an Appliance! It MUST be better then a software solution running on a server!

2) It's Commercial! So now we can have all these lovely misconceptions that they secretly have thousands of engineer's designing the software on this thing for trouble-free operation and hardened security!

3) It's cheaper the competence! Too much faith is put into these magic boxes in my opinion. Time should be spend correctly hardening your network instead of just relying on a high-dollar router to do it for you. Nothing replaces a little foreplanning!


Sorry if I seem biased. I have had long nasty bouts with SonicWalls. Other then some of the management bells and whistles (see rule #3) they really are junk. In their effort to secure your network they will break half the protocols out there. Their spam filtering is also not that strong or able to handle much load.

And I wont even start on the really whacky stuff like what happens when you push VoIP/SIP through it

We used to have that problem a lot on the older SOHO 3's by Sonicwall. We don't see it as much on the new TZ170's and we've got a LOT of those in service. If the LAN LED's are staying lit even when the cable is unplugged you may have bigger problems, but other than that it sounds like you've lost your firmware. (Is the wrench light staying lit?) If you go to your mysonicwall.com account, log in and go to their forum, you'll find the step by step to reload and give it a try.

Fixed. The problem was the power supply. A lot of other owners of these firewalls have complained on the SonicWall website about power supply problems also, specifically the DVE brand of bricks. So before you go hucking that firewall onto the interstate try a new supply. BTW I was unable to identify any problems with the old power supply with my multi meter, the output was exactly what it said on the sticker...

Thanks Michael. I hadn't heard about that on the TZ170's. They had some serious power supply problems on the SOHO3's. I wonder if it was the same manufacturer?

Thanks again for the update. :toast:

i will say it once and i will say it again. replace this with IPCOP.

1 its FREE
2 it allows for VPNs between sites that can be set up by a dummy
3 the road warrior plugin is a great VPN as well
4 Dans guardian web filtering
5 Orange and Blue interfaces for webservers and wifi that are isolated from your network. here where i work all the HVAC and lighting controls are on the orange card, i dont want to give a contractor access to the network.

we replaced our sonicwalls with IPCOPs and we are VERY happy