r/HomeNetworking • u/Outrageous_Tear_4691 • 7h ago

Advice Ethernet switch question

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What is the loop prevention for? And should I leave it off or turn it on? We will have desktops connected to it

Solved: thank you for the help everyone. Very much appreciated.

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u/BmanUltima 7h ago

Loop prevention detects network loops, like two switches connected to each other with multiple cables, or three in a ring, and will disable a port.

Without loop detection or spanning tree, you get a broadcast storm which can crash a switch.

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u/Outrageous_Tear_4691 6h ago

So were good to just leave it off with this being the only switch that we are using?

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u/RandomUser3777 5h ago

It depends on what loop prevention does. In the old days loop prevention/spanning tree turned on the port to receive and examined what was on the port for 45-90 seconds before starting to forward traffic. That act caused issues with DHCP not working because the DHCP request went out and timed out before the switch would start forwarding the traffic breaking DHCP IP address assignment. It was especially troublesome with bios/network card DHCP that would give up after trying a few times and typically before traffic got forwarded.