HP ProCurve 8100fl Series Installation And Getting Started Manual page 90

Troubleshooting
Basic Troubleshooting Tips
■
For more information on possible network problems and their solutions, refer
to the technical note "Troubleshooting LAN Performance and Intermittent
Connectivity Problems", which can be found on the ProCurve Networking
Web site, www.procurve.com, in the Information Library section.
5-2
In addition, you should make sure that 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.
With your ProCurve 8100fl switches, if you wish to build redundant paths
between important nodes in your network to provide some fault toler­
ance, 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.
ProCurve 8100fl switches also support Link Aggregation, which allows
multiple network cables to be used for a single network connection
without causing a data path loop.
For more information on enabling Spanning Tree and Link Aggregation,
see the Management and Configuration Guide on the documentation
CD-ROM that came with your switch.
Check the port configuration. A port on your ProCurve Switch 8100fl
may not be operating as you expect because it has been put into a
"blocking" state by Spanning Tree, or LACP (automatic link aggregation).
(Note that the normal operation of the Spanning Tree and LACP features
may put the port in a blocking state.) Or, the port just may have been
configured as disabled through software.
Check the port's configuration and verify that there is not an improper or
undesired configuration of any of the switch features that may be affecting
the port. See the Management and Configuration Guide that is on the
documentation CD-ROM that came with your switch for more informa­
tion.