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GS108v4 Flow Control
Can you tell me how the GS108v4 handles flow control? In the technical spec it says "IEEE 802.3x full-duplex flow control". When testing with a unmanaged switch that has flow-control and is connected to the GS108v4, it does not seem to consistently handle the pass through.
Thanks,
HI Zonker,
Sorry that I thought that was a general question about flow control.
I check it and both switches implement 802.3x to handle the flow control, so both switches are sending PAUSE frames to the other end of the connection to pause transmission for a certain amount of time.
In my opinion it could be some interoperability/drivers issue with some NIC on the network or the switch that's faulty. It could be an issue with our GS108v4 flow control implementation however right now there is no other reported issue related to the 802.3x on the GS108v4
So my first recommendation would be to update drivers to some of the NIC cards and check that they have flow control enable . And if this doesn't solve the problem contact our support to make sure that we can replicate the issue or replace the switch in case that's faulty.
Hope that it helps.
Xavier Lleixa
NETGEAR CBU PLM
3 Replies
HI Zonker,
The way that 802.3x is implemented in our GS108 is using a PAUSE flow control mechanism communicated via MAC Control frames in full duplex Ethernet link segments.
However the problems usually appears when there is a mixture of gigabit and Fast Ethernet and you are using TCP connections. As TCP already got implemented flow control you can expect some performance degradation due to the double flow control. However that allows you to mix Gigabit and Fast Ethernet devices on your network and use UDP and TCP sessions without configuring or adjustint your settings in your network.
If you can the best way to solve this performance issues is to upgrade as many devices as you can to 1Gbps or segment your network .
Hope that it helps!
Xavier Lleixa
NETGEAR CBU PLM
"If you can the best way to solve this performance issues is to upgrade as many devices as you can to 1Gbps or segment your network" - well unfortunately that is not practical or possible. The whole point of flow control is to not have to worry about mixing Fast Ethernet and Gigabit devices. Seems strange that when I connect all netgear devices through a Netgear switch, I have a flow control issue, but when I connect it through a Trendnet switch, flow control is handled perfectly. Not sure what the difference is in the implementation of flow control on this Trendnet unmanaged switch: http://www.trendnet.com/products/proddetail?prod=535_TEG-S80G#tabs-solution02.. If you have any ideas I would appreciate it.
Thanks
HI Zonker,
Sorry that I thought that was a general question about flow control.
I check it and both switches implement 802.3x to handle the flow control, so both switches are sending PAUSE frames to the other end of the connection to pause transmission for a certain amount of time.
In my opinion it could be some interoperability/drivers issue with some NIC on the network or the switch that's faulty. It could be an issue with our GS108v4 flow control implementation however right now there is no other reported issue related to the 802.3x on the GS108v4
So my first recommendation would be to update drivers to some of the NIC cards and check that they have flow control enable . And if this doesn't solve the problem contact our support to make sure that we can replicate the issue or replace the switch in case that's faulty.
Hope that it helps.
Xavier Lleixa
NETGEAR CBU PLM
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