Patent ID: 7675862

Claim:
A networking hardware element to couple computer network elements, comprising: one or more transceivers configured to receive communication signals from one or more of the computer network elements and to forward the communication signals to one or more different ones of the computer network elements; a network diagnostic mechanism that: iteratively scans the transceivers to monitor the computer network elements; maps the computer network elements; and determines a connection status for the computer network elements coupled to the networking hardware element based on monitoring the transceivers; and a display that: is located at a surface of the networking hardware element; communicates with the network diagnostic mechanism; and displays a network layout map of the computer network elements based on the mapping by the network diagnostic mechanism, the network layout map being iconographic and comprising: representations of the computer network elements; representations of interconnections between the networking hardware element and the computer network elements; and representations of the connection status of the computer network elements; wherein the representations of the connection status are configured to be indicative of at least one of: a communication problem with at least a first one of the computer network elements; or a non-presence of at least the first one of the computer network elements.