I have a customer with a BCM 3.6 with 8 IP phones, and we had no problems getting the phones working. But once we connected the computers to the IP phones, the computers lost all connectivity. We had the customer upgrade his NIC's and the OS to XP and that fixed the problem. My question is, Does anyone know what the MININUM requiriments are to have the IP phones connect the computers properly?? I have to do this again and I would like to be armed with some foreknowledge!!

The Nortel IP phone does not place any requirements on a connected PC. The OS doesn't matter. The phone just passes the data that it receives from the PC along to the LAN. If the PC worked on the LAN before it was plugged into the phone, then didn't work when it was connected, I would look in the following places: TCP/IP configuration on PC, VLAN configuration on LAN switch, and check for speed/duplex auto-negotiation problems between PC and phone.

If there was an auto-negotiation issue, replacing the NICs may well be what fixed your problem. Auto-negotiation from one manufacturers device to another doesn't always work as well as we would like it to. I have had LOTS of problems with Cisco's auto-negotiation.

I hope this helps.



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BCM Guy
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