Group policy problems when 2950 link speed set to Auto 3

[elmurado]

Hi all,
We have a mixed bag of HP and toshiba machines on our network with Cat6 all through. I am finding problems with any machine that has a Gigabit ethernet card (eg Broadcom,Intel, Marvell Yukon).
My understanding was that Gigabit to gigabit via a Cisco switch, the port should be set to Auto. However I get problems where on machine startup, group policies are not applied(eg logon scripts, software installation etc). If, once turned on, the user logs out and logs back in then the logon script runs.

If I hard set the ports and NIC's involved to 100 Full, then the problem disappears. However, then I have a mixed chain of 100 Full on NICS and switches and Auto on the servers which causes slow network transfers.

Should I just bite the bullet and hard set everything to 100 full? Anyone have any similar experiences?

 

[vipergg]

The rule of thumb is if the switchport is set as auto for speed/duplex then the client end "must" be set as auto . If you hardcode the switchport then the client must be hardcoded also otherwise you will have speed duplex issues . Also on all end user ports run the "switchport host" command .

 

[vipergg]

PS "switchport host will probably fix your script problems .

 

[elmurado]

So, can I have this:

Client<---->100F port1 |Switch| port 3 Auto <----> Auto Server
Client<---->Auto port2 |Switch|

ie have different ports connected to different machines set differently? Would this cause any foreseeable problems?

Or, should the whole chain be set to one or the other?

I'll check out switch host.
Thanks

 

[elmurado]

sorry switchport host

 

[elmurado]

Thanks vipergg, have tried it on one problem machine as test and switchport has done the trick. Had initially tried getting the machine to wait longer using a reg hack GpNetworkStartTimeoutPolicyValue and increasing it until the GPO would run.
Your apporach seems to be much more consistent.
Will run it with the interface range command to change all reqd ports.

 

[ADB100]

You can have a mix and match of port settings, however the two devices on either end of the cable must agree on the speed/duplex - i.e. the switchport and the PC. If one end is hard-coded and the other is at Auto then you will usually get a duplex mismatch which will result in you seeing slow performance.

Your question:

Should I just bite the bullet and hard set everything to 100 full?

NO, NO, NO.... This is likely to cause you more issues than solve any.

If I were you I would post the switch type & IOS release and a typical switchport configuration as well as the specific NIC & driver you are using. My gut feeling is this will be a simple portfast issue, however there are some bugs in certain Catalyst IOS releases that you may be seeing.

HTH

Andy

 

[jneiberger]

Don't make me pull out my whip, guys. ALWAYS set both sides of your Fast Ethernet connections to AUTO. Don't hard set either side unless you have a darn good reason for doing so. Manually setting both sides to 100/full is statistically a very poor choice.

Autonegotiation is the only method mentioned in the standard for choosing speed and duplex. Different vendors implemented different ways to deal with manual settings. If you get equipment that happens to agree, great. If it doesn't agree, you're going to get a duplex mismatch.

Leave everything on AUTO unless you have an older NIC/driver that isn't behaving according to spec.

 

[burtsbees]

I second that!

Burt

 

[elmurado]

Having run the portfast and switchport mode access on all the required ports, this has solved the problem. All the GP's are now running fine. Cannot run switchport host -the command does not get recognised-this I imagine is because the IOS is an older version?
It is a C2900XL with IOS version 12(5.1). The company does not have a CCO with Cisco so I will have to convince them that upgrading routers and switches should be mandatory!

Thanks for the great help guys.

 

[vipergg]

Thats correct an old 2924 would not support that command , 2950 and newer would support that command .