Dell 2950 Server Plugged into a 1gb Switch shows 100mb only!

[jj99]

I have inherited a 2950 dell as one of my file servers it not been very happy.

Shadow files would randomly stop and RD would not work, turns out who ever set it up gave it no page file and it ran out of virutal memery I sorted that,

I then noticed that the NIC was running at 100mb when it was plugged into the 1gb core. Immediatly thought it was drivers, updated drivers no joy, it had two network cards. so i thought id swap them. The second one is Broadcom Nextreme II as opposed to the onboard Intel. I updated the drivers put the lastes BACS on etc plugged it in came up with 1gb for arroung 10 seconds then changed back to 100mb!!!!!!

I then tried to change the ip address to static, did this succesfully went back to the property screen it had disppered!! After rebooting changing drivers etc everytime i changed the ip address it didnt save chnages kept swapping bak to dhcp !!! Fortunatly I found a fix for this on experts exchange to change an ini file appartenly its common on net extreme!!!

However it still shows 100mb anyone seen anything like this, dont want to rebuild the sever!!

[garethedmondson]

I have inherited a 2950 dell as one of my file servers it not been very happy.

Shadow files would randomly stop and RD would not work, turns out who ever set it up gave it no page file and it ran out of virutal memery I sorted that,

I then noticed that the NIC was running at 100mb when it was plugged into the 1gb core. Immediatly thought it was drivers, updated drivers no joy, it had two network cards. so i thought id swap them. The second one is Broadcom Nextreme II as opposed to the onboard Intel. I updated the drivers put the lastes BACS on etc plugged it in came up with 1gb for arroung 10 seconds then changed back to 100mb!!!!!!

I then tried to change the ip address to static, did this succesfully went back to the property screen it had disppered!! After rebooting changing drivers etc everytime i changed the ip address it didnt save chnages kept swapping bak to dhcp !!! Fortunatly I found a fix for this on experts exchange to change an ini file appartenly its common on net extreme!!!

However it still shows 100mb anyone seen anything like this, dont want to rebuild the sever!!

I know this is a stupid question - but are you plugging it into a 100mb port by mistake? Based on your comment above I assume not.

Has the port on the switch been set to 100Mbit instead of a gig?

Have you changed the cable? Not sure if that can make a card go slower.

Gareth

[jj99]

I wish i was being stupid lol

Its plugged into Hp 5406zl and set to auto, it shows the port satus of 100 full duplex i change it to 1gb it throws a hissy fit! Checked patch cables too.

The only thing i thought could be is loose pair in the patch panel? But would have thought youd get no link rather than a reduced one???

[m25man]

You need to do a wire test from end to end using the appropriate test equipment.
Gigabit uses all 4 pairs if you have 1 flakey connection on pins 4,5,7,8 it will fall back to 100Mb.
There are some well documented issues surrounding Gigabit Auto negotiation between some switches and certain NIC chips. In my experience certain Broadcoms seem to suffer from this.

See this link for a simple explaination.

The use of STP on the connected switch can also affect the FLP detection.
Check the switch ports carefully, try locking both the server NIC settings and the switch port settings to 1GB.

[jj99]

I tested it with a "blinky blinky" and all 8 pairs were there, dont really wont to look at borrowing a fluke yet might ask the network guys the next time they put a point in to test this one for me.

I dont use STP and i have tried it on a 2800 switch as well no differnce.

Like i said i tried setting the port to be 1gb there is no option on the BACS to set the NIC to 1gb unless anyone knows diffrent?? The Intel card is exactly the same.

In my experinnce the auto-negotion normaly fails the other way forcing 1gb down a 100mb pipe rather that the other way arround. There are no packet erros or CRC alignment errors on switch either to point to a Auto-Negotiation error.

Maybe im gonna have to live with this one, my other 2950 is my email frontend plugged into the same model switch is fine!!