Network Upgrades: shock to the past!

Deathmage

So today I found out a problem with a printer that was in a back room and I was told it didn't work....

So I did the normal stuff....

check the cable....
do a test page....
reboot printer...
...still nothing....
toned the wire.... it toned fine...
checked the wires, all 8 came back peachy....
...still nothing....

Looked at the printer closely, it had a box attached to it hidden behind some books with a parallel cable (they still make them!?! ... I muttered) ... I looked at the box...it's a Jetdirect 170x....

But wait look at the number next to the RJ-45!



This soon followed!


interface Gi1/0/47
spanning-tree portfast
exit
!
interface Gi1/0/48
speed 10
spanning-tree portfast
exit
!
interface Gi2/0/1
spanning-tree portfast
exit
!
--More-- or (q)uit


....problem resolved....

seriously 10baseT is still used I thought, /facepalm!

the_Grinch

Got to love what you find once a problem is discovered! Shows how little we know our infrastructure as I've seen things like this in the past.

apr911

10BaseT is still surprisingly common. Granted, you are dealing with an old printserver (parallel are closer extinction/irrelevance than 10BaseT) but I still see 10BaseT for devices that dont require large amounts of bandwidth. Its also a common failsafe mode for devices to fail into 10/Half-duplex.

My home router with gigabit interfaces fails to 10/Half-duplex for management purposes during boot and I've seen countless cisco switches, firewalls and management devices fail to 10/Half. 10/Half is the most compatible ethernet standard available and for that reason I dont think we will ever truly be rid of it.

--chris--

JetDirect!!!! I just tossed the last one of those at our biggest client last week during a hardware clean out.

Good catch. It might be because I have worked with more "low budget" businesses but I have seen this more than a few times.