GigE autonegotiation problems with Intel chipset

[curtismo]

We recently noticed some issues with the GigE autonegotiation on our 5520 switches with HP desktop and servers that have Intel Gig chipsets. What we were finding is that after doing a switch reload (for example, after a software upgrade or installing the Advanced Routing licenses), the PCs and server cards were renegotiating to 10 mbps rather than 1 Gbps speed. Disabling and reenabling of the card or rebooting the PC fixed the problem.

Our HP desktops and servers with Broadcom GigE chipsets are negotiating properly.

Has anyone else experienced this? We are trying to determine if its a Nortel switch issue or and HP/Intel driver or hardware issue.

 

[DaddyOfThree]

I've actually seen this recently on a few different switches/devices. We upgraded a 5510 to 5.1.3 software and a few of the HP servers in the MAS solution only negotiated 10Mbps full while others negotiated 100Mbps full. We just unplugged the patches and re-connected them and they negotiated properly.

Interesting...

 

[curtismo]

In testing, we found updating the Intel driver on the HP destops did not resolve the issue (ie, rebooting the switch will cause these machines to negotiate 10 Mbps rather than 1 Gig).

What did appear to work is then setting the network card to "Auto-negotiate 1000Mbps" - the default setting is "Auto detect". However, we should not have to touch the growing number of these machines in our network. Trying to figure out whether to try opening a ticket with HP.

 

[DaddyOfThree]

Your probably already aware that Nortel is using Broadcom chipsets in their 5500 series switches.

Have you seen this problem on a switch reboot (not just an upgrade)?

I'll try to test this myself if I can find the time.

 

[curtismo]

My Nortel engineer informed me that the switches use the Broadcom chipset.

Yes, this also occurs on switch reboot, not only on switch software upgrades.

Got a note from our engineer and there is an existing CR Q01924357 on the issue. The issue can be replicated and only affects Intel cards/chipsets. Nortel lists it as a known bug and due to chipset limitations, no fix is planned.

The workaround is to fix the switch port to 1000 mbps, which has possible negative implications for me. I had success starting from the workstation end, but that introduces its set of issues.

Since we use Novell Zen to reboot workstationson a daily basis, after rebooting switches the problem should resolve itself (at least for workstations). We will have to possibly use the workaround for servers and the VMotion interfaces.