Switch Ports - delivering dhcp

[mwidner]

We have a public PC lab in our library. Each PC is loaded with security - e.g. DeepFreeze and Envisionware (for reserving a PC). Each PC is wired to a Netgear switch., then to a router and out to the central site and on to the Internet.

Each workstation looks for a particular port on the machine to connect to the Envisionware server which is in the same building. some of these machines don't get an IP address from the router as quickly as others and then they cannot find the port on the Envisionware server. It is as if the machine can't connect to the network fast enough. If we wait a few, then have it look again, it is connected by this time and it can find the port and connect.

Yet, if we attach the network cable of the machine next to the offending machine and reboot, it gets an IP quickly and is able to connect to the network server without a hitch.

I hope I am asking this correctly.

Do you think the offending equipment is the port on the netgear switch or the router and its dhcp server? Why does one machine get an IP and a connection and the one next to it does not, but if you switch cables, the other does fine?

Thanks and sorry if I am not clear.

 

[rclarke250]

Swap the port cables at the netgear, does it still act the same? or does it act the same as when you swapped cables at the wall plate? If it acts the same as swapping the cables at the wall plate I would suspect bad ports on the netgear.

 

[mwidner]

Thanks rclarke250. Yes, they are swapping at the wall plate, so it may be the switch. I don't know how common that is - for switch ports to go bad.

 

[DrB0b]

Depending on the age/model/brand of the switch, it can definitely happen. I had to manage switches in an apartment complex and we used cheaper Netgear switches which would randomly drop a port every now and then. Just have a laptop handy to test ports and console in, if you dont have web access set up, and make sure to mark the ports that are bad to save headache in the future.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...