{XP} Forcing Marvell Yokon 88e8010 1gig full duplex

[ikonia]

Hi all.

I'm playing with gigabit lan in my office.

One of the machines is a Asus AV8 rev2 motherboard with a "Marvell Yokon 88E8001/030/010 network card on board. (gigabit)

In the Windows Networking options for the card I can force a speed to 10/half 10/full 100/half 100/full or auto sense. this card has worked fine as 100/full for a month or so now. I've just plugged it into the gigabit switch and set it to autosense which detects a 1gig full network connection (great). However I'm confused as to why there is not an option for 1000/half or 1000/full how can I force it to this speed to remove the issues with negotation (especially when some 100/full devices get plugged into the same switch)

Any experience with this card would be most appriciated

[Paul Adams]

There is no such thing as 1000/Half.

Half-duplex implies a hub is used, and there only exist gigabit switches, so they are full-duplex capable.

[ikonia]

point taken, but you get the point I was trying to make. I should still be able to force 1gig speed without relying on negotiation

[Steve]

The NIC will negotiate with the switch, not any devices also plugged into the switch, so as long as the switch is gigabit capable, you should be OK.

The only other advice I can give is make sure you have the latest driver.

[ikonia]

drivers are fine, and again I take the point on the card negotatiing with the switch, but any switch (its not a 2K managed switch) which has to manage multiple network connection speeds can cause problems with negotation on ports.

Plus....I'm curious to why a 1 gig forced speed is not available for selection, why does the driver rely on negotiation.

I'll have some fun with linux and this, but its interesting that windows doesn't have an option to force it.


Also - thanks for the comments so far.

[Paul Adams]

I'll have some fun with linux and this, but its interesting that windows doesn't have an option to force it.

The options visible in the drivers are provided by the manufacturers, not the OS.
Every piece of hardware advertises the services they support through the drivers provided - some manufacturers of NICs give options for forcing various settings, some provide extra features that are unique to their chipsets, etc.

Not heard of issues with switches negotiating different speeds to be honest - but I have heard of issues with some switches (including big name ones) which have problems if the NIC and the switch are both set to auto-negotiate.
I have this mental image of 2 "very English" people reaching a door at the same time and repeatedly saying "after you", "no after you", "no, I insist, after you..." and never reaching an agreement

[ikonia]

Nicley put paul.

I'll drop a note to the Marvell geeks asking for this info in the drivers, maybe even making a request for it to go into a future release of the drivers.

I have seen problems on small networks with switches having auto neg on and cards having auto neg on at different speeds, eg: 2 ports at say 100, 2 at 1 gig and say 1 at 10 the over head of the switch sensing with the cards set to auto neg causes a few bugs now and again, where as if you tell the switch "here is 2 100 meg nics here are 2 1 gig nics and there is a 10 hanging off the last port" it just has to deal with the traffice. Apparantly this is not a problem when the switch is autosensing all the same speed.

Yes your right on the big network kit, the most famous bug was the CISCO switch sets not being compatible with Sun QFE cards. Half the banks in the UK went nuts over this.

thanks for the input