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LAN network speed w/Win2000 clients

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by drummerb0y

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One of our smaller VPN offices runs a Netware 5.x server with Win2000 clients. They all hook up to a Netgear JFS516 switch (inside of the router of course). The problem is the Win2k clients will only work fully on 10MB/full duplex. When they auto-negotiate to 100MB, they can't see all or part of the Novell trees (in the worldwide VPN). Once they're forced to 10MB/full, everything works, albeit at a snail's pace. We have a couple of other offices set up and configured the exact same way, with no problems.

5 replies

by sgt_shultz

well, you checked that the ports on the switch and router are 100MB capable, yes? reset the switch?
if not a bad or misconfigured port on switch or router, i'd look at the wiring. can you bypass the wire in the wall, get one of the pc's with the problem patched in directly to the router with a known good 100MB cable? reset the router and test with new cable?

by drummerb0y

Yes, the switch is 10/100 capable. We've tested all the wiring. We've plugged with a factory made patch cable directly into the switch. The router is not part of our problem. It's LAN related. Any traffic moving over the WAN is at normal speed,even if the PCs are connecting at 10MB.

by drummerb0y

We tested this as well. We even tried an answer to a similar question at this site: unbinding IPX protocols from MS networking services, to no avail.

by mshavrov

I know there is a similar problem with Cisco Switches. If you don't configure "spantree portfast enable" on the port, your PC will not pick up IPX Network Number due to inability to determine Frame Type.

In simply words how it works:

1. You turn on your PC.

2. Switch sees power (signal) on the Ethernet line and goes to "Listening" and then to "Learning" mode. Totaly it may take up to 40-50 seconds.

3. After switch learned what MAC addresses are available through that port, it will change port mode to "Forwarding". ANd it's only state when port starts sending frames to your PC. It's required to prevent loops in your network.

4. If your PC is boots up faster than this time (Sure new PCs do), your NIC can not determine what IPX Frame Type to use and so, can not learn IPX Network Address.

There are a few ways how to cure this:

1. Configure your switch with "portfast" option. In some switches it's named "fast learning mode". If you do that, your switch will start sending frames to your PC in 2-5 seconds, without taking care about preventing network loops.

2. Configure your IPX protocol with IPX Network Number and IPX Frame Type manually. As I told before, IPX due to it's nature does not re-request (re-determine) these parameters, so you may just configure them manually. Sure, it will be some additional overhead with laptops which should "walk" between offices.

3. It would be a good idea to configure both, your switch and your PCs with hardcoded Speedand Duplex parameters. At least it will elliminate all troubles with autodetection and "auto-half-duplex" problem.

If you have mure questions, send me e-mail.

Good luck,

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