Your problem of a lack of negotiation would mean that you were missing one or more of the cable pairs. GigE requires all 8 wires (4 pairs) for operation, not just 4 wires (Two pairs / TX and RX) like Fast Ethernet. Take a look here: http://www.commsdesign.com/design_corner/OEG20020822S0002 <http://www.commsdesign.com/design_corner/OEG20020822S0002 ;> That should give you a bit more info. Cisco had (have?) a reputation for link issues. Have a chat to someone who uses Fluke equipment for link testing, a number of the Fluke devices came with warning pamphlets in the boxes regarding doing link testing with Cisco switches. Essentially if my mind remembers correctly, they didn't (Or don't) send a solid link signal, they blink it (Switch it on and off) to save power. If anyone wants to correct me on this, please feel free. Berny _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Evan Mann Sent: 05 December 2005 14:11 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: OT: NIC Teaming I've experienced odd negotiation problems with my Cisco 3560's and other devices, but never my Dell servers on my Catalyst 6513, with are all auto-negotiation on the servers and the 6513. The problem with this 1 NIC is the cable wasn't snapped into the patch panel all the way, and it happened to be in a way that it could only negotiate at 100 instead of GigE, odd. On my 3560's, I've had problems where I force 100/full or 10/full and try to link up to devices that are non-Cisco (such as some IAD's from my ISP) and they just refuse to work. Have to set them to auto and they link instantly. As for my original issues, they went away the next morning during a copy test. Slow for about 5 minutes, then it bumped to full speed. Something was/is getting on the network and flooding out. Probably excessive broadcasts, but since it comes and goes, it's really hard to track down. _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrew Wood Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 5:08 AM To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: OT: NIC Teaming Chris, Come across the same thing myself. I've read a number of docs that state setting the port speed will gain the best results, but have found in the field a number of servers (dells especially) seem to operate better if the port speed is set to auto on the server and fixed at the switch port. I think ultimately this setting is depenedent on both the server and switch hardware, and the 'fix everything at 100mb/fd' is not a networking silver bullet. Perhaps a better recommendation would be to test fixing settings on servers and switches and implement whatever comes out best in your environment? _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Walter, Chris Sent: 03 December 2005 03:41 To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx' Subject: [THIN] Re: OT: NIC Teaming This is interesting, I have the same NIC's and had similar problems. I believe we have the same switches as well. We do use teaming but only for failover. I have one NIC set as a standby. The problem we have with the 100 meg connections is that even though the switch is configured for 100/full the server side will only connect if I set it to auto even though it shows that it connects at 100/full. I have tried updating the drivers, Bios and others. Sometimes resetting the switch port fixes the problem. I gave up on it though because it was happening right before our Q4. I found that if we switched the switch port to 1000/full and set the Broadcom nic to Auto that everything connecting ok without errors on the switch port or server and I got my performance back. Chris -----Original Message----- From: Dirk Blose [mailto:Dirk.Blose@xxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Friday, December 02, 2005 5:38 PM To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: OT: NIC Teaming I don't know if anyone has chimed in on this yet but, the most important thing with 100MB connections is to make sure the negotiate correctly. The recommendation for Server connections is to set them on both the NIC and switch port to be what you want such as 100/Full Duplex. If either side is set to automatic a negotiation mis-match can occur which can result in a serious performance issue. Try that and see if it helps. Dirk Blose, MCSE, CCA Lead Technical Analyst (919) 765-4791 dirk.blose@xxxxxxxxxx >>> emann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 12/01/05 7:14 AM >>> Hopefully someone who really knows their stuff about NIC Teams and the switch side configurations can help me out! Outside of my particular issue, I was hoping we could spurr up a convo on what kind of NIC team everyone uses, against what kind of switches, and for what reasons. I use all dell servers which have dual Broadcam or Intel GigE NICs. I have always teamed them in Adaptive Load Balancing (ALB) mode. The requirements for this are basic, and based on my readings, it gives me a quality mix of load balancing and failover. Last night I discovered one of my servers had 1 NIC running at 1000 and the other at 100. ALB is supposed to work just fine with this. I discovered this because I was getting *HORRENDOUS* network performance from this server. It was copying 5k chunks of data every 3 seconds or so, that's how bad it was. I disabled the NIC connected at 100 and things improved, but only slightly. This server is connected to a GigE blade on a Cisco Cat6513. I checked the port settings and QoS and all look normal. I'm trying to figure out why the performance is so aweful. I'm not sure if it's related to the team and 1 NIC being down, or something bigger is going on. The only requirements for ALB I've read are that no teaming is done on the switch, and spanning tree if off. No teaming is done, and I have spanning tree portfast off for this server, but spanning tree status is still "forwarding". I couldn't get any good info on the switch end of things to know for sure. Anyone have any tips for me to look into? I need to do the typical update NIC drivers, but this is my main production SQL server, so I can't do it until this weekend, and I know this is really hurting overall performance out to my users. I don't have this issue with any other servers connected to the same switch using the same port setups that I've seen. And outside of t ************************************************ For Archives, RSS, to Unsubscribe, Subscribe or set Digest or Vacation mode use the below link: //www.freelists.org/list/thin ************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The service is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit: http://www.star.net.uk ________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ The contents of this transmission are confidential. If you are not the named addressee or if it has been addressed to you in error, please notify the sender immediately and then delete this message. 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