[Info-vax] DE500 and autonegotiation

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <dKhFs.850921$%Q3.536864 at en-nntp-15.dc1.easynews.com>,
lederman at Encompasserve.org (B. Z. Lederman) writes: 

> When I worked in OpenVMS engineering, I had a problem with an Alpha
> and one of the earlier PCI interfaces.  I consulted with >>> THE <<<
> expert, and was told that, after it was implemented, some deficiencies
> were found in the 100BaseT autonegotiation protocols.  Usually it worked,
> but sometimes it didn't depending on which NIC you had and which
> Router / Hub / Switch it was connecting to.  The solution most of the
> time was to either change the network equipment (if possible), or,
> on a VMS system, use the options that enable you to specify the
> settings the NIC should use and not autonegotiate.  

>From VMS or from the console.  If the former, should I worry about 
screwing something up, or can the worse that can happen be a forced 
reboot?

> This is the
> quickest solution as the external equipment shouldn't change
> speed or duplex settings very often.
> 
> I was also told that the deficiencies were fixed in the 1000BaseT
> protocols, so another solution is to change your external Router /
> Hub / Switch to 1000BaseT.  

I now have a 10/100/1000 switch.

> My personal experience with some older
> Apple Macintosh systems that didn't autonegotiate correctly at
> 100BaseT is that they do work correctly on a 1000BaseT hub.  And since 
> nearly all of the equipment you buy today is 1000BaseT or "better", 
> that's also an easy solution, even if your NIC and the rest of the
> network are running at 100BaseT.

I have several spare DE500 cards; not sure what model they are.  If it 
is the model of card which is the problem, perhaps swapping in one of 
these would help.