3024 lockup

Here is the standarad response being given to everyone:

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=pc_managed&message.id=1351

JaiA,

Thank you for the link of the previous message. I have a Netopia/Caymen 3346 ADSL Router for our internet connection. Does anyone know if the CDP protocol mentioned with Cisco routers that might cause the problem something that the Netopia uses, or is it something only for Cisco?

Does anyone know how to detect/check for a Broadcast storm and if found fix it?

I've also been doing searches and some sites say the Spanning Tree protocol should be disabled when you experience Broadcast storms. Should I try this, will it affect the network? I currently have the Fastlink protocol enabled, but I dont remember if Spanning Tree is or not. Basically, I have nothing special configured, no VLANs. All I have done is set all ports to 100Mb / Full unless connected to a 10Mbps device, that port is set to 10/Half. I also have a Dell PowerConnect 2024 switch connected to the 3024 and the port connection is set to Auto and I have 2 other locations with standard switches and the ports for those are set to Auto.

Thank you,

Mike

Actually, disabling spanning tree will likely have little effect on the problem you're reporting.  It may even make things worse if your network topology has redundant loops.

CDP, for the most part, is a Cisco proprietary protocol - but we have seen vendors such as HP use it as well (they license its use from Cisco).  The best way to view what traffic is coming into the switch, is to configure a packet sniffer to monitor traffic, and then create a port mirror from the uplink on the 3024 to the switch port to which the packet sniffer is connected.

With some packet sniffer applications, you can also get a rough estimate of traffic captured - usually a breakdown of the protocols, and a rough estimate of the traffic crossing the link.  They will also tell you where traffic was coming from - which can help in identifying the source of problems.

However, you'd be best off using an SNMP monitoring tool of some sort to keep an eye on the switch traffic and utilization - this would be much more useful for keeping an eye on the network for possible broadcast storms (usually indicated by an extreme, sustained spike in broadcast traffic on one or more links).