Switch port configuration and PING issue

[Davo67]

we have a dell powerconnect switch 5324.

there are 6 Servers and 6 PCs connected directly to it using straight cables.

The PCs are using the same NIC, broadcom.

speeds are set to auto. No flowcontrol,

I have 2 queries:-

1) PINGing the switch. I'm getting times of 15ms sometimes up to 100ms. Yet this is a direct connection with a cable of 20m metres to the switch. Surely this should be <1ms..

2) Viewing the ports shows some are connected as MDI some are MDIX yet they are identical devices connected??!


I'm not a network engineer so dont know where to start.

thanks

 

[cajuntank]

Not familiar enough with Dell switches to start with anything specific. Was this a new switch? If no, I might start by clearing it's config (after you get a copy of the config) to get it back to factory default. I would also check to see if there are any firmware/software updates that need to be applied to this as well as the NIC(s).

My next thought would be to about your cabling... check if your cabling was certified at 1Gb, if your using CAT5e or better cable end to end. Try forcing your connection speed on both nic and switch port to 100 and see if replies are faster. If so, then maybe something in cabling can't handle 1Gb.

You are correct that you should be getting <1ms ping time replies being directly connected to this switch, so I would try going vanilla as possible with one connected pc or server to switch, disconnecting everything else, and pinging. Maybe you just have a bad switch, try another switch, doesn't have to be a 24port 1Gb, just something else to check ping reply times.

Let me know if anything helped.