D-Link switch failure

Well, I didn't mean for this type of entry to mark my return to this blog (it's been very busy this week because of the bad computer week of last week), but this is too weird.

Last week (when all the network storage was blowing up), I came into work and a few devices were not talking to the network (namely, a plotter and a computer, both of which share an ethernet wall jack to our network through a wireless access point/router). I tinkered with the router a bit and finally they came back online. I figured the router was going bad and made a note of it and disregarded our secretary telling me that one of our printers seemed 'slow', since it was on the other side of the office.

Well, two days ago I came in, and same problem! I reset the wireless router again like I had the last time, but this time to no avail. But when I realized that the printer that was reported 'slow' the week before was also totally out this time, I took a trip to our server room and looked at our network map. Turns out, the two jacks that the wifi router and printer use both ran through the same D-Link DSS-5+ 10/100 Fast Ethernet Switch. Taking a look at the switch, I noticed that all the connected ports' indicator lights were flashing very rapidly and constantly. I pulled those cables and ran them through another switch and *presto* everything started working again. I figured, "switch went bad"...it's pretty basic-no IP address of its own, no configuration, not even a reset button. I tried just power-cycling it a few times (waiting varying times before powering it on again), but it stayed in the same behavior. Since it's a pretty cheap switch, I just ordered a replacement (upgrading to a nice gigabit switch...yay).

End of story, usually.

Here's the weird part - I went home last night and my computer was offline. I power-cycled the DSL modem, no change. Since my DSL modem had all the appropriate lights, I went downstairs and checked our Wii...it was online! I went back up to my computer and checked the signal path - turns out I use the exact same D-Link switch to branch out to the ethernet connections after the DSL modem/wifi router. Explains why the Wii was still online - it goes right to my DSL modem wirelessly. Looking at the D-Link switch, I noticed all the active ports' lights were flashing just like the one at work had. So I bypassed that switch and plugged right into my DSL modem, and came right back online. Another weird thing was that I remembered that sometime last week it had been offline for about 10 minutes, but I tinkered with the DSL modem until it started working again - quite possibly the same kind of 'warning' outage that I'd had at work and thought I'd resolved with another device as well.

So here's the question: how do two identical devices which are otherwise not related or linked at all (and that have no timekeeping mechanism in them, upgradeable firmware or even reset buttons) fail within 24 hours of each other!!?

Anyone else have a D-Link DSS-5+ switch go out this week?