[c-nsp] Cisco 2924XL Questions

[John Neiberger]

A word of warning to you if you should decide to replace the 2924XL with
the 2950. If you are the sort who hard codes your speed and duplex on
your devices then you're in for a potentially nasty shock with the 2950.
If you are currently hard coding your settings, make sure to set both
ends of your links to auto if you upgrade to a 2950. 

The 2924XL still participates in Nway autonegotiation if you manually
specify the speed and duplex, but the 2950 does not. Some NICs (or NIC
drivers) expect to see an Nway-capable device on the other end, and if
they don't see one then they assume they're connected to a hub and they
drop back to half duplex even when configured for full duplex. This can
be a lot of fun if you're a masochist.

Trust me on this one: if you're using 2950 switches, set both sides of
all links to auto unless you run into a problem that cannot be fixed
without hard-coding your settings. If you must manually specify your
settings, 100/full still may not work well. If it doesn't, use
100/half.

Sorry, I know that answers a question you weren't asking. :)  I just
started having all these flashbacks from when we migrated away from
2924XLs to 2950s. Ah, the good old days of hunting down dozens and
dozens of duplex mismatches...

John
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