problem with switch

[Faheem Mitha <faheem@email.unc.edu>]

Hello everyone,

I've recently encountered an odd problem with a switch and a Dell PC
running Debian. I'm using it on a cable modem. When I plug the machine
directly into the cable modem, I can get on the net (the cable modem
uses DHCP as per usual).

However, when I plug the machine into the switch, the machine can't
get on the net, in fact it can't get a lease from the DHCP server at
all.

However, a Mac OS X laptop does not have any problems. Therefore, the
problem presumably has something to do with the combination of the
switch and the machine.

The machine in question has a Broadcom card, and is using Debian's 
somewhat hacked around with tg3 driver, so I'm wondering if that could 
perhaps be causing the problem, and if so, whether switching to the 
bcm5700 would solve it.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions about how I might resolve
this issue? Thanks in advance.

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                                                              Faheem.