[LAN] Seeing all traffic on Dell switch

[chilifrei64]

Here is my problem, I am encountering slowdowns on my network when someone runs a search from our terminal server to our file server. I can tell this because I run a packet monitor on my pc and I see roughly 1500 packets/sec going from the terminal server to the file server. The other servers get far less traffic but I do see traffic from those occasionally also. My question is.. WHY AM I SEEING ALL TRAFFIC. I dont have port mirroring enabled or any sort of promiscuous mode running on my machine.. I ran the packet monitor from 7 different pc's and i still see all the traffic

My guess is because I see all the traffic, this is the cause for my slowdown, but why is a switch showing all traffic. I shouldnt be seeing this traffic because it is a switch and not a hub. I have already reset the device to factory defaults and I still see the same results.

Please anyone with switching knowledge, I am 100% fluent in Cisco switching.. (hence the reason my cisco switches arent doing this) but am newer to Dell switch configurations.. anyone with any ideas?

[RogueSpear]

It almost sounds as though something is wrong with the switch, I mean other than a config issue. I don't know my way around Dell switches either, but maybe you could poke around and view the switch's ARP table, etc to see if there is anything else that doesn't make sense.

[jftuga]

Here are a few ideas. We have a Dell PowerConnect 5224 here.

You could call Dell Tech Support and/or look at the web interface for errors (under statistics -> counter summary).

You could also try (as an experiment) to isoloate the traffic by setting up VLANs, through the web interface of the switch.

You could run a packet sniffer on several PCs at once, like Ethereal, and see what kind of traffic you are seeing - maybe it is a bunch of broadcast traffic.

Hope this helps,

-John

[chilifrei64]

I actually do already have a VLAN setup on the switch between the same terminal server terminal server in question for our Database for the accounting people. I do not see any of the terminal server to DB server traffic(and I really really shouldnt becasue they are on seperate vlans). The type of traffic that is beign spotted are TCP packets on port 3389(Terminal Server to remote computer) and TCP packets on port 445(SMB traffic from Terminal Server to file server).

I am seeing other broadcast traffic(browser announcements and hello packets but those are few and far between.

And as far as packet sniffers.. I have been using either packetmon(analogx.com) or Ethereal and I am seeing the same results.

There was an error detected on one of our ports but it was our battery backup which i simply removed it from the switch.. ...

jftuga

just out of curosity... your dell switch doesnt do what mine is doing right........?

[jftuga]

No, I don't see anything like this on our switch. And I am out of suggestions on how you can fix yours. :-(

-John

Edited May 12, 2006 by jftuga