> >> Brought up some more and they put the network into chaos. I had to > >> power down three of my front office switches and leave up two that > >> ran vital services.
We have had this happen several times. It usually occurs about once every six months, just to keep us on our toes. It's always something different that brings it on. The only way we can stop it is to start unplugging network segments. In most cases we have a switch that goes crazy and starts spewing packets out on the network. Also what can REALLY cause a problem is when your electricians plug a loose wire back into a switch and the other end is also plugged in the same switch. This causes a network loop which starts spewing packets on the network. We've had a cable plugged in to a machine, that worked sometimes, the cable had it's transmit/receive pairs crossed, but it still kinda worked, until it started spewing packets on the network. The past few times we've had a problem was because someone was ghosting a workstation, which wasn't supposed to be going out on the network, but it ended up flooding the switch in his office then it spewed to the the rest of the network. It's a terrible terrible thing and about the only way we have found to stop it quickly is to start unplugging network segments. If we had every MAC address recorded and it's location then it would be a lot easier to find the culprit, or narrow it down a certain building, but we don't record every MAC. I wish we did, but to go back and do it now would be a MAJOR pain. BB
