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One switch good, two switches bad

A small LAN whose gateway is a five port router has a workstation connected like so,

Workstation switch router ( rest of the LAN )

I add another switch, i.e.

Workstation new switch switch router

The workstation is now almost cut off - ping packets are dropped and web pages start to load slowly then freeze. I try different cables. It is an auto-sensing switch so misuse of the uplink port or its neighbor is not the issue (which would in any case cause no connectivity, not poor connectivity?). Replacing the cable between the switches does not help.

I try another switch in place of the new switch with the same result, some but poor connectivity.

If the new switch is connected directly to the router it works fine. All the switches involved are consumer-grade 10/100 5-port. Assuming no misuse of ports nor bad cables, what could be the trouble?

Reply to
KM
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My quesss: The auto detection of the port settings (half duplex, full duplex, speed) do not work correctly with the switches on the link between the switches. For example one end thinks link is full duplex and other that is half duplex. It sort of works at very low load, but when more packets come there will be all kinds of problems like lost packets etc.. This happens sometimes with the certain combination consumer-grade or professional industry-grade swiches. With the professional industry switches there is usually some option to configure the switch ports in a wayu that they are fixed to certain settings (for example full duples 100 Mbit/s) to make things work when autodetect fails to work well.

Reply to
Tomi Holger Engdahl

Thanks. I had naively assumed it would "just work".

Reply to
KM

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