Cisco Switch & Network Card conflict

[derek-jackson]

I have a problem on a customer site with an Intel(R) PRO/1000MT network card connecting to a 3700 switch.

The problems I am encountering are as follow's

When using DHCP on a machine it is unable to connect to the Network sometimes, Roaming profiles not loading sometimes and Network connection appears to sometimes be slow. I have heard that there may be a known problem with this type of card and cisco switches. Can anybody tell me if they have heard of this and if I enable Portfast on the switchport would this cure it ?

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

there is a document on CCO which describes problems between Catalyst switches and certain NICs, check this link:

Troubleshooting Cisco Catalyst Switches to NIC Compatibility Issues

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/473/46.html

Using the 'spanning-tree portfast' command on access ports is indeed always advisable, because otherwise your clients will always experience a 40 to 50 second delay upon connecting to the network (this is the time it takes for the spanning tree process to go through its five phases). In addition, it is also a good idea to add the keyword 'bpduguard' to the 'spanning-tree portfast' command, this ensures that nobody can connect a switch to one of the access ports and bring down your entire network.

HTH,

GP

www.solutionfinders.nl

[derek-jackson]

Thanks,

I will try that.

Regards

[milan.kulik]

Hi,

I've found this

"A Gigabit Ethernet connection between a SGMII (Serial Gigabit Media Independent Interface) port (3/4, 7/8, 11/12, 15/16, 19/20, and 23/24) and an Intel Pro/1000T Server Adapter NIC might loose connectivity on the Catalyst 3750G-24T and Catalyst 3750G-24TS switches. The link activates correctly, but might subsequently stop exchanging data. This is an Intel product defect. The workaround is to use RGMII (Reduced Gigabit Media Independent Interface) ports (1/2, 5/6, 9/10, 13/14, 17/18, and 21/22) instead of SGMII ports. Alternatively, use the speed 1000 interface configuration command to force the speed of the port to 1000. (CSCea77032)"

in 3750 Release Notes

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/customer/products/hw/switches/ps5023/prod_release_note09186a00801ce089.html

BTW, portfast is recommended on any user port.

Regards,

Milan

[derek-jackson]

Thanks,

Problems seem to have resolved.

[glen.grant]

The answer to your very last line is will it fix it if you add spanning tree portfast and the answer is more than likely , all user ports should have this turned with the emphasis on user ports , do not use on equipment connections.

[anil-varma]

I am facing similar problems in one of our customer places with Catalyst 6506 switch with WS-X6748-GE-TX

with Intel Pro 1000MT Dual port Server NIC. We enabled teaming feture on this card. We are facing performance issues with this setup. Can anyone tell me if they have faced any problems like this? I have enabled portfast on all these ports.