Question:

Hello, we are running a 100mb ethernet network with 4 Windows servers, 1 HP Procurve Switch and about 20 client workstations. Our procurve switch shows that almost a dozen clients on the network have errors on their ports. Some are significant. One user has nearly 3500 errors on her port. The switch has only been in use for about 8 months now. We have compared the workstations with errors to the workstations without errors and there isn’t really any major configuration difference. Are there any good tools out there that can tells us where these errors are coming from? We mainly are looking for any additional information about these errors that will give us an idea of what is causing them. We have a hunch that the problem is our Altigen phones that have built in hubs but we have no way of proving that right now.

Here is our network configuration:

4 Windows servers
1 Procurve 4000 (10/100mb)
20-25 Workstations
15 Altigen Phones that are networked (they have built in hubs, not switches)

Solution:

You could setup a syslog server for the switch to dump its logs to so that you are able to go through them and see if any errors are occuring.  If you can try taking one machine connected to a phone and connect it directly to the switch and see if the problem still exists.  Also on the switchports that do not have this issue is a phone connected or only and phone and no PC?