A few weeks ago, I started getting complaints of IP address conflicts on my network with my Windows 7 hosts. When I went into the event logs I found that the conflict was with 0.0.0.0 and it sometimes listed the MAC address of the switch interface. It seems that this is a known issue, and Cisco is blaming Windows for gratuitous ARP requests. Why did this start just weeks or months ago out of the blue? The article that I was reading about this problem was from October 2013, but they note that this happened with Vista too. Was there a recent Windows update that caused this change in behavior?
I have tried to follow the suggestions in this article: http://www.cisco.com/image/gif/paws/116529/116529-problemsolution-product-00.pdf
But I can't perform the most common fixes, such as setting a delay using "ip device tracking probe delay" or "ip device tracking probe use−svi" which seems like the most logical fix. It seems that I am being punished because I have a 6513 or a 6500 series switch. These commands are not available to me ... and at the rate we are going, probably never will be.
I have also performed the workaround with my Windows machines to kill the gratuitous ARP. That has resolved 90 percent of the conflicts I was seeing, but not all of them.
Has anyone else found a good fix or workaround for this problem involving 6500 series switches?
