5308xl Configuration

[Bill Donehue]

I have 2 5308s trunked using straight thru cat5e cables on the 100/1000-t module. The users are constantly complaining that the speed is horrible. By looking at the utilization ( 1 - 3% ) I can't say it's bad. However, reading in the installation manual I see where trunking, vlans, etc should be disabled.

Should I be using crossover cables in this situation?

Thanks in advance for any ideas.
Bill

[Les Ligetfalvy]

I presume you are talking about the J4907A 16 port gig modules. They are Auto-MDIX and can be fixed to MDI or MDIX so there is no need for crossover cables.

[Bill Donehue]

Les, Actually the blades are J4821A, 4 port gig modules. We are using all 4 ports to connect to the other switch in a trunk setting. We do have Vlans enabled & these 4 ports are trunked. According to the installation manual, P. 12, Advanced Features it mentions that vlans, trunking, etc. should be disabled.

[Les Ligetfalvy]

The Installation and Getting Started Guide states that "the 100/1000Base-T ports on the 100/1000-T
xl Module comply with IEEE 802.3x standard which includes the Auto
MDI/MDI-X feature. These two features operate the same and allow you
to use straight-through twisted-pair cable for all of your twisted-pair
network connections".

You need to read the Advanced Traffic Management Guide which explains trunks and VLANs. They are not mutually exclusive. Do you have spanning tree enabled?

[Leo Katona]

Since the utilization of the 4-port trunk is no more than 3% (~120 Mbit/s), try removing the trunk and replacing it with a single 1 Gbit/s link to confirm whether the problem lies with the trunking.

I don't believe using straight-through or crossover cables is related to any speed issues in the network.

[Bill Donehue]

Spanning Tree is not enabled.

[Shiraz Malik]

Hi bill,

"The users are constantly complaining that the speed is horrible" --> where the users are connected ? to the same 5308 ? If that is the case, then viewing the event log of 5308 could probably tell you the problem. How many VLANs you have ? or is it a flat network ?

Waiting for the details,
shiraz

[Shiraz Malik]

Just read that you already have the VLANs defined on the switch. Please tell me the tagged and untagged status of the ports?

thanks