Troubleshooting a Managed switch.

[AV1611]

I have major problems. I got a 3com managed 48 port 10/100 switch. Plus a 8 port GIG unmanaged.

Started out having bad network problems. Bought these 2 Switches to fix the problem. I have Intel NIC's in all computers. Slow Network. Internet gets lost or is major DELAY all the time. I have a T1 dedicated to internet.

I tried setting all the computers that I could to 100FD. This didn't fix the problem. Still have network issues. TONS of collision on my Internet Router, which is a Netscreen, running at 10HD.

How can I go about troubleshooting this or what is a reasonably priced network tool or software that I can buy to find out what is wrong??

Thanks, Michael

 

[awj]

First thing to recognise is the 8 port unmanaged switch if this is the officeconnect switch then the memory in this switch is low, if you have power users attached or servers then this is the wrong device, it cannot cope with sustained high levels of traffic.

A cheap analyer is Ethereal, in fact it's free and just works on the NIC card in the laptop or Desktop. It works fine and you can save the captures in Sniffer or HP format and send them to the various vendor support groups