Switch Slow to Connect Clients

I have an Aruba S1500-24P switch that I use for my network that seems to be slow connecting computers that are wired to ethernet. My wireless devices don’t seem to have this issue so I don’t think it’s DHCP. It takes about 2-3 minutes for the desktops connected to the switch by ethernet to get internet. I have tried disabling POE on the ports to see if that might be causing the issue but with no success. Is there a setting I can change to make it faster?

Turn on rapid spanning tree or similar setting

4 Likes

What he said. (Edit: not quite). For a switch that does spanning tree (most enterprise or non consumer managed switches) you need to set the port mode to spanning tree off for end devices.

Otherwise the port will take 30 sec to learn before coming up. This will break dhcp for them. This isn’t a fault, just how spanning tree works.

Rapid spanning tree will not fix this. RSTP will do the same thing. The rapid part in RSTP is just figuring out topology changes in a multiple switch environment faster. End user ports still need it turned off.

You need to set the ports to port fast or spanning tree edge or similar in the switch config for the affected ports.

1 Like
2 Likes

Is there any reason for me to have it enabled. From what I’ve seen online I don’t see any reason I would need it since I only have the one switch. I just disabled it completely for now and it looks pretty good so far.
Thanks Everyone!

Spanning tree will help in the event someone plugs both ends of an ethernet cable into two different ports on the switch, OR a client PC with two network ports gets configured to bridge the NICs, OR even a single port PC gets configured to “hair pinning” mode, which happens to be an easily accessible option on Linux these days.

But yes, I would enable portfast for all the ports on a home network switch.

1 Like

Basically that.

You can get away with no spanning tree at home if you have only one switch and/or are not a muppet.

In the workplace though, it is critical to avoid people creating loops that you can’t find as a loop will basically create an infinite forwarding loop and crash your network (switch will go to 100% load and fall over).

I’d suggest if you have any inkling towards being a network admin, learn to configure it properly :slight_smile:

But yeah, just disabling it entirely for a single switch will certainly work.

1 Like