Re: NFE setting manually to 1000baseT and half duplex

[Matthew Seaman]

Erik Trulsson wrote:

(IIRC a switch or NIC that is set to auto-negotiate, but where the
negotiation fails (possibly because the other end is not set to
auto-negotiate) will usually revert to 10Mbps/half-duplex, i.e. the
original, slowest, Ethernet speed.)

100Mb half-duplex is the default setting in this sort of mismatch.  It
will 'sort of' work, but you'll find performance is terrible and there
will be significant amounts of packet loss.

Note too that 1Gb speeds require both sides to be set to autonegotiate
-- it's part of the standard for supporting those speeds, so that in
the event of transmission difficulties the connection can be gracefully
degraded rather than just ceasing to work at all.

There's a lot of received wisdom around that wiring down connection
speeds is a good idea.  That may have been the case 5 or more years ago,
when there were certainly some combinations of NIC / network switch

rare.  Nowadays, for best results, auto-negotiate.

        Cheers,

        Matthew

--
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
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PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
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manufacturer that just wouldn't negotiate correctly, but now that 1Gb/s capability is pretty much standard such incompatibilities are

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