Re: [WinMac] Curious NT4 MacPrint problem

Subject: Re: [WinMac] Curious NT4 MacPrint problem
From: Michael Perbix (perbix[at]lmsd.org)
Date: Sat Feb 16 2002 - 19:08:37 EST

On 2/16/02 4:07 PM, "Bruce Johnson" <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:

>> I'll just say as an aside, and keep in mind that I'm a HUGE Mac fan,
>> that I am starting to sympathize somewhat with my good friend and
>> friendly neighborhood Network Administrator. It's rather tiresome to
>> have to "dumb down" our network to accommodate Macs which seem to do
>> things in such a non-standard manner when it comes to networking. We
>> can't have Spanning Tree ANYWHERE.

Spanning tree should be off on client ports. You can keep it on for ports
used for switch downlinks. We had to enable the Cisco Port Fast mode on all
our client ports, especially the windows machines as well. So it is not a
Mac thing. I agree though that the Macs need a GUI to adjust the parameters
of the NIC. OSX has the commands but they don't do anything. At least OSX
has IP tools like PING etc built in at long last.

> Well, first, this is a common problem with 10/100 mixed networks anyway...most
> of the problems we have had with these are with Wintel systems, in fact. It
> can happen any time both sides are in autonegotiate mode...you can get into an
> 'After You, Gaston. No, after YOU , Alphonse' mode.

We even had a problem with Cisco Switches with older Macs that had 10 half
cards in them. By the time the switch performed it's auto negotiate the
computer was booted up and the AppleTalk stack was trying to load. So we
had to lock the ports at 10/half to prevent the time it took for the switch
to negotiate. Just the nature of the beast.

>
> Did you also consider setting the ports on the switches to a fixed 100 full
> duplex? That should also take care of it, and is usually what we end up doing.

Be careful with this, if you set at 100 full, make sure you also set the
computer the same, do not rely on Auto Negotiate. If you do (at least
admitted by Cisco) the speed will negotiate but the Duplex will default to
half, so you will have a mismatch. The network will work, but you will get
greatly reduced throughput as well as shotty connections. However, Apple SE
told me that OSX needs to be at Auto negotiate. (Besides not being able to
lock the NIC on the client 8-)...)

  -Mike

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