We recently installed a 3550-12T switch (10 x 10/100/1000Base-T + 2 GBIC slots) and installed 2 new 3com 10/100/1000 NIC cards onto two NT4 Servers. We then attempted to get the servers to run at 1000 but were unable to select the option of speed 1000 and full duplex on the servers although the switches were able to be modified to the desired speed and duplex. In an attempt to resolve the problem we contacted 3 com who replied with the following e-mail
> I have rang 3Com support and found out that the Network card fitted will
> run at 1ghz if 5 connections are made to the Switch.
>
> The properties of the network card within NT4 will not show an option for
> the 1000base connection, this is normal according to 3Com. The only
> options available are Auto,10,100 with half or full duplex etc. This
> setting has to remain on Auto, and you have to set the jumbo frame type to
> be 9000, this option is on the same screen.
>
> Now here's the part that I cannot get my head around, when connected to
> the switch the connection speed is by default 400 mhz, until 5 or more
> connections are made to the switch from the clients. It appears the
> bandwidth increases to 1 ghz when this amount of client connections is
> made. I do not know if your IT guy who fitted the Cisco switch knows if
> it also can run with variable jumbo frame type being selected to 9000.
>
> We have selected Auto on the NIC within the NT, but Charlie who is of
> until Monday 16th Sept and was the engineer, might not of selected the
> jumbo frame type to 9000 With this done the single connection is still
> only going to be 400 mhz. I can not understand how 3Com can supply a
> network card that will run at 1 ghz only if 5 connections are made, this I
> would of expected to run at 1 ghz with only a single connection.
>
Does anyone know if the following information is correct or are we being mislead by 3 Com? I am finding this hard to believe.
Thanks
A Roberts
