Procurve 1800 dropping SQL Server connections and open files

[RomanA_1]

I just installed a new Procurve 1800 into a mixed 100 / 1000 environment.

We have two stacked Intel switches (100mbps) and on one of the ports of the Intel switches I have ethernet going to port 1 of the Procurve 1800. I left vlan setup alone and only changed the IP address on the 1800.

The environment was fine for two days and today our ERP clients kept crashing out because they couldn't connect to the SQL server on one machine. Also, people with open files found themselves locked out of files.

I'm not sure why we were running smooth for two days and then this started happening.

I've currently gone back to using just the Intel Switches.

[RicN]

Do you have any reason the suspect the 1800 switch for being responsible for this problem other than it is new in your company?

It is of course possible that the switch is misfunctioning, but I would personaly start with investigating the SQL server and the clients.

[RomanA_1]

Adding the switch was definitely the problem.

Once the switch was removed from the network we did not have any SQL errors or issues with files.

[Matt Hobbs · Accepted solution]

I would suspect this to be a Gig>100 buffering issue. Unforutnately with the 1800 there isn't anything that can be done to optimise it (on the switch). You can possibly try and mess around with registry things on the client machines, adjust tcp window sizing and the like.

The 1800 definitely plays best at Gigabit. I agree it doesn't explain why it working fine for two days though. If you suspect it's hardware related get it swapped out, I'd be more inclined to upgrade my client machines to makes sure they were all Gigabit.

[RicN]

>We have two stacked Intel switches
>(100mbps) and on one of the ports of the
>Intel switches I have ethernet going to
>port 1 of the Procurve 1800.

Did you check the port statistics on the Intel and Procurve switch for any errors?

One thing that could be possible would be a duplex mismatch between the Intel and Procurve. Since the bad effects is different depending on the load of the network that could explain why it worked for some days.

[RomanA_1]

I did not see any errors in the web console for the HP Curve. I didn't look for errors with the Intel Switches though.

We are not interested in upgrading all our computers to gigabit, is there an HP switch that can handle the dual evironment?

[Daniel Friedhoff]

Have you tried configuring speed and duplex on the problem PC's?

We've had several Dell models that were picky about speed / duplex settings when configured at the switch, but worked fine when configured on the PC.

[Matt Hobbs]

The 2810 is definitely a better switch that should be handle mixed 100/1000 environments a lot nicer.

I'm fairly certain it also has the qos-passthough-mode feature which allows you to reconfigure the buffers on the switch to better suit your environment. From memory it might actually be enabled by default on this switch, you'd have to check the manual though.