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Resources

Geek Speak "Auto" Sensing Switch Ports

"Auto" Sensing Switch Ports

Josh_Stephens over 16 years ago Less than one minute read time

I just finished troubleshooting an issue where the link between a small workgroup switch and the switch upstream in the LDF kept going down. The workgroup switch was setup amongst a small group (10) of users and they'd basically reboot the switch when the issue occurred.

Manually setting the speed and duplex states on both switches resolved the issue. So, I've gotta ask doesn't this seem a little ridiculous to you? I mean, after all these years we're still having to manually configure these settings to maintain reliability on the switches? Seems pretty freak'in crazy to me...

Are you guys experiencing similar problems or was this an isolated case? I'm not hands-on with the gear as often as I used to be and would like your perspectives...

Flame on...
Josh

Top Comments

fmasotti over 4 years ago

i love orion:)
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rschroeder over 7 years ago

It's 2016, and this old thread still bears reviewing. Auto negotiation of port speed and duplex has been a standard for twenty years, and has been reliable as long as vendors write NIC drivers that comply with the standards.
Yet I continually see present-day equipment coming with requirements for hard coded switch port speed and duplex.
Worse, they want static IP addresses, manually assigned DNS entries, and workstations MUST be installed on the subnet as their server because they are not Layer-3-aware--they don't have places in their network settings for subnet mask entries and gateway settings.
When will we ever learn?
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ecklerwr1 over 7 years ago

This problem still happens sometimes but luckily most times both sides can be auto/auto. The duplex mismatch add on to Orion has helped some too. Now it's part of NPM I think.
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superfly over 8 years ago

I guess it just means it doesn't work?
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cahunt over 8 years ago

I prefer to Error Disable, at least is attempts to come back on its own.
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