Description: Late collisions may be a symptom of cabling problems. A late collision is one that occurred 64 bytes or more into the packet.

Late collisions may be an indication that a segment is longer than allowed by the wiring specifications.

A station will believe it has control of the cable segment if it has already transmitted 64 bytes. If another node at the far end of the segment has not yet seen the packet, and transmits, this packet will collide with the first transmission after the first 64 bytes have been sent. Ensure that your segment length does not exceed the maximum length allowed.

Because the location of cabling problems can be very difficult to detect on an Ethernet network, you may want to 'shorten' an Ethernet segment (remove portions of the network to isolate problems) until the problems are no longer seen, and then expand the network until the problem recurs.

If this counter increments quickly in a short period of time, it may mean that the network card is running in half duplex mode, but your hub or switch port is configured for full duplex mode. Compare your network card's configuration with the port's configuration.

Late collisions are also included in other collision-related statistics.