Extreme Networks with Mac G5 NIC

Hi all,

I encounter a strange issue.
I got a customer who has near 150 Mac G5 (I'm a network engineer)

These desktops are connected (via the network interface card) to a switch Extreme Networks X450a (model).

But the links never go up !!!

If I set "autonegociation off with full duplex and 100Mb/s" on the switch, the link goes up !

So at this moment, I had to set autonegociation on all switches of my customer (near 120 switches) because sometimes, we encountered the problem on DELL Laptops too.

To resolve the issue on the DELL, we had to upgrade the drivers of the NIC (network interface card).

But I don't find how can we upgrade the MAC G5 NIC and I'd like to know if there are commands (in CLI, for the Terminal) that permit me to see what kind of NIC is installed on the MAC G5.

Maybe some of you had the same problem...

I tried to connect with my Mac book on the switches but link goes up without problem (in autonegociation mode).

So you'll tell me to disable autonegociation on all switches but this is not a solution. I'd like to understand why this happens with Mac G5 (and work with all others computers, mac and PC, and this works if we upgrade drivers of some NIC cards, but not MAC G5 NIC because I don't know the model and where to find drivers update).

I'm sorry for my langage, I'm french.

Thanks for your help and understanding.

Any update ?

If someone could just give me the commands (for Terminal) that permit me to obtain informations about drivers and chipset of the Ethernet card...

Thanks

In the Terminal, the command ifconfig will give you some detail about the network connection, but I'm not sure if that's what you need.

You can try digging around in Network Utility (Applications => Utilities folder) and also System Profiler (Applications => Utilities folder).

I find it odd that you had to update drivers on your other machines to get them to auto-negotiate. Is your switch's firmware up to date?

In the Terminal, the command ifconfig will give you some detail about the network connection, but I'm not sure if that's what you need.

Click to expand...

=> I already used this ifconfig command but this one does not give me enough informations about the ethernet card

You can try digging around in Network Utility (Applications => Utilities folder) and also System Profiler (Applications => Utilities folder).

Click to expand...

=> I'll try this

I find it odd that you had to update drivers on your other machines to get them to auto-negotiate. Is your switch's firmware up to date?

Click to expand...

=> I don't find the NIC informations, I need this to update all machines.
About the switch, I tried many firmwares, the manufacturer works on this issue too but this happens on Cisco Switches too !!! We think about a driver problem...

I thank you for all, I'll check in Network utilities if I find something...
Thanks again