4-2
Troubleshooting
Basic Troubleshooting Tips
Troubleshooting
Caution Because the 2610 Switches behave in this way (in compliance with the 
IEEE 802.3 standard), if a device connected to the switch has a fixed 
configuration at full duplex, the device will not connect correctly to the 
switch. The result will be high error rates and very inefficient communi-
cations between the switch and the device.
Ensure all devices connected to the
 2610 Switches are configured to auto 
negotiate, or are configured to connect at half duplex (all hubs are 
configured this way, for example).
■ Faulty or loose cables. Look for loose or obviously faulty connections. 
If the cables appear to be OK, make sure the connections are snug. If that 
does not correct the problem, try a different cable.
■ Non-standard cables. Non-standard and miswired cables may cause 
network collisions and other network problems, and can seriously impair 
network performance. Use a new correctly-wired cable or compare your 
cable to the cable in appendix B, “Switch Ports and Network Cables” for 
pinouts and correct cable wiring. A category 5 cable tester is a 
recommended tool for every 100Base-TX and 1000Base-T network 
installation.
■ Improper Network Topologies. It is important to make sure you have 
a valid network topology. Common topology faults include excessive 
cable length and excessive repeater delays between end nodes. If you have 
network problems after recent changes to the network, change back to 
the previous topology. If you no longer experience the problems, the new 
topology is probably at fault. Sample topologies are shown at the end of 
chapter 2 in this book, and some topology configuration guidelines can 
be found online at the ProCurve Web site, www.hp.com/go/procurve/
manuals.
In addition, you should make sure your network topology contains no 
data path loops. Between any two end nodes, there should be only one 
active cabling path at any time. Data path loops will cause broadcast 
storms that will severely impact your network performance.
For your Switch, if you wish to build redundant paths between important 
nodes in your network to provide some fault tolerance, you should enable 
Spanning Tree Protocol support on the switch. This ensures that only 
one of the redundant paths is active at any time, thus avoiding data path 
loops. Spanning Tree can be enabled through the switch console or the 
web browser interface.
The 2610 Switches also support Trunking, which allows multiple network 
cables to be used for a single network connection without causing a data 
path loop. For more information on Spanning Tree and Trunking, see the 
Management and Configuration Guide, which is on the ProCurve Web 
site at www.hp.com/go/procurve/manuals, (See page 1-13).