Issues with config on PC 5012

Question

I'm trying to setup a ghosting station on a VLAN totally separate from production.  Our Cisco guy configured a port from a 3750G? switch for a 1gig FDX using 802.1q encapsulation.  For some reason, the switch would never sync up at a gig!  It would negotiate for 100Mb FDX and the Activity LED would strobe in a fast steady fashion.  I have yet to be able to obtain an IP address using this switch.  The data jack that feeds the switch is configured properly and does work; I tested by connecting a laptop and successfully obtained an IP address that corresponds to the subnet.   Sometime b/w today and yesterday, the 2 switches found common ground because I rebooted the 5012 (not the first time mind you) and it showed a Gig conn for the main feed to the switch.  Verified with Cisco guy that no change was made.  I've been all thru the interface making changes only to get nowhere.  Everything's back at the default now, except STP has been disabled and I've forced a Gig FDX on the main line to the switch.  No trunks or port mapping have been created   Should I be using port trunking?  We have another 5012 implemented in our network.  I compared the settings on it with the one I have here and nothings different, except the software version.  This really shouldn't make a difference because I tested on the version of the operational switch and the newest version (v612) available from Dell.    Is there somewhere I can find out what the LEDs represent?  I remember reading somewhere that during the POST, an orange LED indicates hardware trouble.

DELL-Cuong N. · Answer

Here is the LED information from the manual:

Port LEDs

Four LEDs show the operating status of each 10/100/1000BASE-T port and one LED shows the operating status of each GBIC port as reflected by the indicators in each of the following sections:

1000

Off — Either a 10/100-Mbps link is up or the link is down.
Green — A 1000-Mbps link is up.

100

Off — A 1000-Mbps link is up or the link is down.
Green — A 10-Mbps or 100-Mbps link is up.

Activity (ACT)

Off — The link is down.
Green — A link is up and there is no activity.
Blinking Green — A link is up and there is activity.

Full Duplex (FDX)

Off — Either a half-duplex link is up with no collisions or the link is down.
Green — A full-duplex link is up.
Blinking Green — A half-duplex link is up and collisions are occurring.

This switch is a bit before my time but I don't see a yellow indication in the manual so where do you see the yellow LED again? Is it on the port?

Also whether or not you use trunking is aside from the issue with port negotiation. When you configure the port to auto-negotiate you must make sure that switches on both sides of the link are configured to auto-negotiate. You mentioned that you force the port to gig now and it works? That indicates to me that perhaps the Cisco switch is not setup to auto-negotiate. If only the 5012 was setup for auto-negotiation before and the Cisco is not then what will likely happen is that the 5012 will default to the lowest common denominator when the auto-negotiation failed. This means it will be setup to 100Mb / Half-duplex (which may explain blinking LED). If you are not doing auto-negotiate on both end then go ahead and just figure out the correct static configuration for the port and setup the 5012 port to be the same as the Cisco switch port.

Cuong.

Networking General

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