Network issues caused by HP shutdown

[andreyakub]

In my network which contains few hudred computers,  whenever I shutdown the HP Computers It causes a lot of issues for other computers on the network such as disturbance on the multicast streams, stopping the network of others and... . My network is divided into VLANs and in each VLAN I have maximum of 40 computers.

Please somebody help me. This has been my issue for the last few months and I have not been able to resolve it.

[parnassus]

You aren't providing us any information about your Network Topology (vendor/model of any switch involved, their respective interconnection topology, spanning tree status, software versions they are running on and, least but not last, their sanitized configurations...just to name few things the lack of would render impossible to guess what's happening): AFAIK a single "normally and properly configured" access host - such as a PC, as example - shouldn't be responsible for taking your entire network topology down (or causing troubles horizontally on it). Start to provide us some details and, maybe, we will be able to help you to troubleshoot the issue you're experiencing.

[andreyakub]

Hello Parnassus

Thanks for the response, sorry for the lack of information. I will try to do my best to provide the info. Our network is as follows:

• We are using Zyxel witches as  the managed infrastructure as CORE and Distribution switches.
• In each building there is one Zyxel managed switch.
• Each room in the building is connected to one port of the main switch
• In every room there is one or more unmanaged 100 M or 1Gig switches and there are variety of computer brands in each room, HP, Dell, ....
• The unmanaged switches  are also from different low-end brands such as Dlink, 3com m ...
• There is no spanning tree configured, the topology is not looped.
• Each building has a separate VLAN.
• We have multicast stream in this network being broadcasted to all VLANs.

The problem occures when the HP desktops are shutdown and NIC card blinks showing they are active causing disruption of network activity of other computers in the  same switch. We tried to deactivate the WOL but still  we have the same problem.

[Vince-Whirlwind]

What you seem to be saying is that your multicast stream is being managed by a host instead of by your network infrastructure, and when you switch that host off, the multicast is being interrupted. Sounds kind of weird.

So I am guessing your PCs have a multicast-querier running on them (I didn't know PCs did that). I'd disable that.

I think the answer will be to configure your network switches for IGMP and PIM.

[andreyakub]

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@Vince-Whirlwind wrote:

What you seem to be saying is that your multicast stream is being managed by a host instead of by your network infrastructure, and when you switch that host off, the multicast is being interrupted. Sounds kind of weird.

So I am guessing your PCs have a multicast-querier running on them (I didn't know PCs did that). I'd disable that.

I think the answer will be to configure your network switches for IGMP and PIM.

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 But the issue is that whenever I shutdown certain HP computers, they will have negative effect on the LAN and  other computers on the same switch, such that I have to take their network cable out so that other people could conitinue. working or watching  multicast stream.  What I need to know is that: is there any way I can  configure the HP computer  BIOS or .... such that when I shut it down the network card stops completely so that it does not affect other computers negatively?

[Vince-Whirlwind]

From the perspective of "switching and routing" what you describe is weird and perhaps something to do with your IGMP & PIM configuration on the switches and routers.

If your question is about managing the NIC on a host, there may be better forums for the question.

[andreyakub]

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@Vince-Whirlwind wrote:

From the perspective of "switching and routing" what you describe is weird and perhaps something to do with your IGMP & PIM configuration on the switches and routers.

If your question is about managing the NIC on a host, there may be better forums for the question.

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Thanks for the support, please let me know :

1. I have no  IGMP configuration made on my Core, Distribution, and building switches . Do I have to have IGMP enabled on my switches?

2. Which forums do you recommend, I use to get to a solution to work on the NIC behaviour  of computers please?

[Vince-Whirlwind]

1. If you are having problems with multicast, then yes, you should configure your switch IGMP & PIM configuration.
What happens with a multicast stream at Layer2 is that one device gets elected "querier" or "rendezvous point". If you can configure your switches so they win the "querier" election then you won't need to configure the PCs. Otherwise you will need to configure the PCs as well.
Still, the problem you describe sounds kind of weird, and maybe something else needs to be looked at on your network.

2. Maybe somewhere like this: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/bd-p/HardwareDPC
Something to do with the "Wake on LAN" feature, maybe?