Power Connect and Power Edge compatability

Question

I just installed 3 new poweredge 2850 and a older poweredge 4600 servers on a new 3448 stacked switch switch.  I am trying to set all of these at 100mb full duplex but the don't seem to want to talk that way.  When I set the servers at 100 full and the switch on auto negotiate, the switch shows the 2850's at 100 half and the 4600 at 100 full.  when I make the switch at 100 full the only one that wors is the 4600.   I have also had similar problems with 3348 switches and Cisco routers and Dell GX270's.   Any ideas???   Ken Andrews

DELL-Cuong N. · Answer

If you enable auto-negotiation you must do that on both end of the link. Don't set up one side for auto and the other side fix. Either setup both side static or both side auto. If you setup the switch to auto it will try to negotiate and if it fails it may actually block the port (if you setup the switch for blocking).

Try to setup both side for auto-negotiate first and see if that helps.

Cuong.

swerdna · Answer

Yes I know you have to set both sides the same....Thats the problem when I do set them the same the 2850's stop talking to the switch.  I was stating before that even though the servers are hard set at 100 full the switch set to auto sees them at 100 half, its like they are not negotiating in the same language.

DELL-Cuong N. · Answer

Let me restate your setup to make sure we are on the same page:

You have two servers connected to the switch.
On both NICs on the servers you fixed them to 100 FULL.
On the switch ports connecting to the servers you set the ports config to Auto.

Is that correct? If so then that's the problem I was trying to explain earlier. You have two possible ways to configure this:

Either you must configure the NICs on the server to 100 FULL AND you must configure the ports on the switch to 100 FULL (DO NOT use auto on the switch in this case). If you configure the switch to auto and the NIC on the server to fix, then the switch auto negotiation will fail and the switch will drop you back to minimum setting or block you out completely.
Or, you can enable auto negotion on the NICs in the servers and auto negotiation on the ports in the switch. If everything is setup auto, then you will be able to negotiate the speed.

If you want everything fixed to 100 Full then make sure the servers and the switch ports are configured to be fixed to 100 Full, don't configure auto-negotiate anywhere.

I hope this helps. If I'm still not understanding your question correctly please let me know.

Cuong.

swerdna · Answer

Hi Cuong   Yes I did configure both the switch and the servers at 100 full, and the 2850s (3) intermittently worked and the 4600 worked fine.  the only reason I was using auto on the switch was for diagnosing the problem. sorry for the mis-understanding.     I did seem to find a fix for the 2850's   after setting the switch back to 100 full I also cleared all of the check boxes for the admin advertisement.  I really think it was the check boxes causing the problem, even if I only set  the 100/full box I would still have problems.  for right now its seems to be working great......time will tell   thanks

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Power Connect and Power Edge compatability

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