INTERESTING CISCO 5509 QUESTION

[tmanley]

Has anyone every seen a CISCO 5509 Switch cause Win95/98 PC's with Novell Client 3.2 blue screen of death at boot up. Any ideas on configuration of the switch. It is set to auto negotiate, but we did set it to 100Mb during trobleshooting but no joy. These same PC work fine on Bay Hubs. This problem is occuring at numerous different sites that use the Cisco 5509 switch. The pcs are running NW Client 32, 3COM 10/100 PCI card c3905b, IPX, SPX, IP, Netware IP.Problem goes away when TCP is removed from the PC.

 

[tmanley]

By the way the Switch is a catalyst 5509 and also the Fatal Exception does not occur if the cable is reomved from the nic during boot up. I can reinsert it after the pc boots and the pc can connect with no problems to IP/IPX, ETC

 

[jeter]

just a thought, but are these catalyst running dhcp and or have you tried another nic card other than 3com.  I have used the 3com card c3905b and found that there not that great of a product .

 

[tmanley]

I tried 3Com and Compaq NICs. The switch is not running DHCP itself, but we have a NT PC that is our DHCP server

 

[bmorritt]

I would check the nic card also try a different brand/model.<br><br>I would also check ciscos web site and look up your problem in the bug finder, check the release notes for the version of software you are using on the switch and check the field notices.<br><br>If no joy, open a case with Cisco.<br><br><br>Brian

 

[mschirmer]

Try to enable portfast on your catalyst ports where the clients pc´s are connected<br><br>&quot;set spann-tree portfast mod/port enable&quot; should be the command..<br><br>after this the switch goes direct into the forwarding mode<br>and skips the learning mode of stp..maybe the learning mode does not work well with the netware client..<br><br><br>

 

[Guest_imported]

I had some problems with some Novell Clients when we installed some new Cisco 2924M switches.&nbsp;&nbsp;*Some* Novell clients would no longer come up to a login screen.&nbsp;&nbsp;I found, on the Novell Site, a bug report about the Cisco switches that stated that the spanning tree algorithm runs on a port when the port comes up and does not forward the Novell 'Nearest server' requests until it is finished.&nbsp;&nbsp;I believe the client sends out 3 and then gives up.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I turned on portfast, as mschirmer suggests above, on some of the ports and that fixed the problem for us.<br><br>Not sure why you would get the blue screen of death, but I'm **VERY** interested since I have scheduled to perform a 5509 installation in our main office Friday, July 28th.&nbsp;&nbsp;We were already planning on turning on portfast on all the end node ports but does anyone have any other suggestions?<br><br><br>

 

[bmorritt]

I have suddenly become more interested in this...We are starting to have similar problems but it is not occuring at boot up.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A couple, actually about 6 specific people, using different models of the compaq computers with different nic cards are all experiancing similar problems.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Blue screens and the screen freezing, it appears random but happens to them more than others.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;One lady has recieved 4 new computers and is still having a pretty much daily fit of blue screens and freezing.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It might happen every 15 minutes in the morning and then not happen again the rest of the day or it might happen serveral times during the day.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Others might go a couple days or a week and then lock up 3 or 4 times in a row.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It is strange, but we are looking into it.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>Right now we can't point it to the switch because there are different and different kinds of switches involved.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Also some of the people are in a building with poor wiring so we are trying to rule everything else out first.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>I will let you know if we find anything.

 

[Guest_imported]

We put in the 5509 as scheduled on July 28th.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Thankfully, we have not had any reports of any problems.&nbsp;&nbsp;All of our computers are less than 3-year-old Compaqs; some Presario but mostly Deskpros.&nbsp;&nbsp;Wiring is also less than 5 years old.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>On the problematic computers, have you tried downloading the latest NIC drivers, MS-Office updates, and NW client?&nbsp;&nbsp;I've had incompatibilities with NIC drivers & Windows95 Rev B, which didn't appear until we installed MS-Office…go figure.<br><br>Also, in the original message, tmanley states that the problem went away if TCP was removed.&nbsp;&nbsp;Could there be a TCP/IP application that's launching either at bootup or periodically that has a conflict?&nbsp;&nbsp;I recently had a user install XDRIVE software that mapped his x: drive to a server on the web but he would get a blue screen of death on boot up if the internet was slow or unavailable, etc...yea I know, I reaching...<br> <p>Steve Evans<br><a href=mailto:sevans@richmond.k12.va.us>sevans@richmond.k12.va.us</a><br><a href=

http://richmond.k12.va.us/>Richmond

Public Schools</a><br>&gt;&gt; Custom Web design for $45/hour&hosting&lt;$10/mo-&gt; theowl@theowl.com &lt;&lt;

 

[bmorritt]

It looks like some of our problems have been cleared up by recreating the image that we use for all our new machines.&nbsp;&nbsp;Including some new drivers- video, sound and nic card.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It seems that loading certian programs from novells application launcher could some what consistantly cause the problems but the new drivers seemed to have helped. Some of the machines have gone untouched and seem to be doing better.&nbsp;&nbsp;Go figure.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Will let you know if anything new is discovered.<br><br>Have no idea about the removing the TCP thing...it might be a stretch but then again...it might be related?<br><br>Brian

 

[XoverIP]

so this is what i have to look forward to in the real whorld?&nbsp;&nbsp;hhhmmmmmmm.....

 

[bjhagroo]

Be aware that to run 100 Mbps full or half duplex always use the best possible cable testers to determine that your end to end connection would truly support 100 MBps. I have seen a multitude of the problems described and because of wiring somwhere in the link they hang or try to renegotiate, my quick test is to hard set the PC to 10Mbps and half duplex and the switch port the same and see how long they run. You can also look for alignment and framing errors on the switch port, those are the clues.

 

[Farmer]

What version of IOS are you running on the 5509? What modules are installed? There is a doco on the Cisco web site that might help. It's at:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/473/winnt_dg.htm.

Hope this helps.

John Kowalski
john.kowalski@eds.com

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi, You may have already tried these avenues, but I personally always configure the switch port with the required speed / duplex mode from previous bad experience with using the 'auto' mode. Secondly, with some of the newer servers we have been installing, 'portfast' has cured a number of strange error messages that have been arising.

Hope this may help.

Rob Berry
robert_w_berry@yahoo.com