Autonegotiation Speed and Duplex

By default, each Cisco switch port uses Ethernet auto-negotiation to determine the speed and duplex setting (half or full). The switches can also set their duplex setting with the duplex interface subcommand, and their speed with—you guessed it—the speed interface subcommand.

Switches can dynamically detect the speed setting on a particular Ethernet segment by using a few different methods. Cisco switches (and many other devices) can sense the speed using the Fast Link Pulses (FLP) of the auto-negotiation process. However, if auto-negotiation is disabled on either end of the cable, the switch detects the speed anyway based on the incoming electrical signal. You can force a speed mismatch by statically configuring different speeds on either end of the cable, causing the link to no longer function.

Switches detect duplex settings through auto-negotiation only. If both ends have auto-negotiation enabled, the duplex is negotiated. However, if either device on the cable disables auto-negotiation, the devices without a configured duplex setting must assume a default. Cisco switches use a default duplex setting of half duplex (HDX) (for 10-Mbps and 100-Mbps interfaces) or full duplex (FDX) (for 1000-Mbps interfaces). To disable auto-negotiation on a Cisco switch port, you simply need to statically configure the speed and the duplex settings.

Ethernet devices can use FDX only when collisions cannot occur on the attached cable; a collision-free link can be guaranteed only when a shared hub is not in use. The next few topics review how Ethernet deals with collisions when they do occur, as well as what is different with Ethernet logic in cases where collisions cannot occur and FDX is allowed.

Continue reading here: Collision Domains and Switch Buffering

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