ESP32-PoE boards Ethernet Connection Fails

[des]

I have a few ESP32-PoE Boards with me which I use to connected to an unmanaged switch in order to create a network.

I use the Arduino arduino-esp32 library to generally program them. Of lately during some tests, I used the same sketch (to collect sensor data and send it to an IP address via UDP) on some of the boards (assigning different static IPs) and found out that 2 of the boards do not connect to the network at all.

From hardware perspective the two LEDS on the right side of the RJ-45 socket do not blink at all and the three LEDS on the left of the socket blink very dimly. I do not see this as a software error as the same sketch was uploaded on two other nodes and they work perfectly making it more hardware specific.


I need to know which components need to be tested on the board in order to troubleshoot the Ethernet connectivity.

From the software side I obtain

ETH Started

but I do not get anything else beyond this. I assume some component on the board is blown off which is stopping the Ethernet from connecting to the network.