Showing posts with label Cabling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cabling. Show all posts

Saturday, May 9, 2009

How to detect and diagnose cabling problems using Time Domain Reflector (TDR) in Cisco devices

Goal: diagnose and resolve cabling problems
What it does: The device sends a signal through the cable and compares the reflected signal to the initial signal sent.

Important:
- Only works with 10/100/1000 copper
- SFP and copper 10/100 not supported

- Run it with the IOS Command:
test cable-diagnostics tdr interface <..>
show cable-diagnostics tdr interface

TDR will detect these cabling problems:
- Open, broken, or cut twisted-pair wires. The wires are not connected to the wires from the remote device.
- Shorted twisted-pair wires. The wires are touching each other or the wires from the remote device.

Example:
SWITCH# test cable-diagnostics tdr interface GigabitEthernet 1/0/47
TDR test started on interface Gi1/0/47
A TDR test can take a few seconds to run on an interface
Use 'show cable-diagnostics tdr' to read the TDR results.

SWITCH#show cable-diagnostics tdr interface GigabitEthernet 1/0/47
TDR test last run on: March 04 19:37:15

Interface Speed Local pair Pair length Remote pair Pair status
--------- ----- ---------- ------------------ ----------- --------------------
Gi1/0/47 1000M Pair A 0 +/- 10 meters Pair B Normal
Pair B 0 +/- 10 meters Pair A Normal
Pair C 0 +/- 10 meters Pair D Normal
Pair D 0 +/- 10 meters Pair C Normal


The PRBS test can only be executed for TenG interfaces:
SWITCH# test cable-diagnostics prbs start interface TenGigabitEthernet ?
<1-9> TenGigabitEthernet interface number