<div>We've recently picked up three used force10 SA-01-GE-48T switches. We're experiencing random issues where is seems like a significant portion of the switch stack drops connections to the devices connected. This is happening maybe a couple of times a day. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Here is some more info:</div><div><br></div><div>I only know enought to be dangerous -- we have a networking consultant working on it who probably is better with cisco gear but has some f10 experience.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The swithes are stacked using two stacking cables -- 1 to 2 and 2 to 3. This seems like this is a supported configuration (cascade) according to this web page:</div><div><br></div><div> <a href="http://www.force10networks.com/CSPortal20/TechTips/0057_HowDoIStackSSeriesUnitsTogether.aspx" target="_blank">http://www.force10networks.com/CSPortal20/TechTips/0057_HowDoIStackSSeriesUnitsTogether.aspx</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>but maybe we *need* a cable from switch 3 back to 1 (ring)?</div><div><br></div><div>All the switches are running SFTOS 2.5.2.2 with QOS, Multicast, Stacking and Routing.</div><div><br></div><div>Nothing unusual in the log. A few interfaces going up and down but not really corresponsing to when we are experiencing issues.</div>
<div><br></div><div>No errors in "show stack-port diag".</div><div><br></div><div>We took one of the switches out of the mix and things seemed to be better but not perfect.</div><div><br></div><div>When the problem occurs, everything comes back to normal after a couple of minutes. </div>
<div><br></div><div>There are several vlans configured. One vlan where most of the communication is confined to the vlan has not seemed to have any problems.</div><div><br></div><div>When the problem occurs, it seems to affect ports on multiple switches in the stack.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Spanning tree routing is enabled as is OSPF.</div><div><br></div><div>Another thing worth mentioning is that the we had some issues configurring multicast routing. We wanted to use sparse mode PIM but couldn't get it working with a cisco router. We ended up getting a multicast proxy working -- not sure what this really means. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Most of the gear attached to the stack is either broadcom of intel chipset.</div><div><br></div><div>Any ideas on how to futher debug this issue or what to look at? Thanks. -- Bud</div>