Hello Eddie,
Thank you very much for offering assitance. As soon as I can catch the output of the commands as you instructed, I'll post. Unfortunately the uptime is shorter and shorter every time now to the point that I can no longer get any communication from the switch via in-band connections (I now have only 2-4 secs before the switch shut off).
I think the ports may be damaged or stuck. I have access to a working switch of the same model and I can see that no port LEDs should be lighted when the switch is powered on in the absence of any data cables. In case of the bad one, without any data cables I see it lit up ports #2 and #6 before everything is shut down (very briefly).
Thanks again.
-Nang