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Quiz Entry - updated: 2026.07.05

What are the minimum and maximum Ethernet frame sizes, and what happens to frames outside these limits?

Valid range is 64–1518 bytes (preamble/SFD excluded). Anything smaller than 64 is a runt and is dropped; an otherwise-valid frame larger than 1518 is a giant. "Jumbo frames" are a different thing — an intentional, must-be-enabled feature, not just "anything over 1518".

A standard Ethernet frame is 64 to 1518 bytes, measured from the destination MAC (Media Access Control) address through the FCS (Frame Check Sequence) — the 8-byte preamble plus Start Frame Delimiter (SFD) used only for timing are not counted. The terms for malformed frames trip people up, so keep them straight:

Bar chart of Ethernet frame-size ranges: runt below 64 bytes, valid 64-1518 bytes, giant above 1518, jumbo as an enabled feature to ~9000 bytes

* The valid band is 64-1518 B; below it is a runt, an otherwise-valid frame above it is a giant, and a jumbo frame is a separate must-be-enabled feature. *

  • Runt — a frame smaller than 64 bytes. If it was produced by a collision it is also called a collision fragment. Runts are invalid and the receiver discards them.
  • Giant — an otherwise-valid frame larger than 1518 bytes. A baby giant is one only slightly over the limit, most commonly a frame carrying an 802.1Q VLAN tag (~1522 bytes). A plain device that hasn't been told to accept them will drop a giant.
  • Jumbo framenot simply "any frame over 1518". This is an intentional, vendor-supported feature (often up to ~9000 bytes) that must be explicitly enabled on both ends and on every switch in the path. It is used to cut overhead on Gigabit/10-Gig links (e.g. iSCSI, NFS storage). Disabled by default.
  • Bad FCS / CRC-error frame — a frame inside the valid 64–1518 range but with a checksum mismatch. It is just an error frame; it is not called a runt or giant. (A runt-with-bad-FCS from a collision is the collision fragment above.)

Why 64 bytes minimum? On legacy half-duplex Ethernet the slot time had to be long enough for CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection) to notice a collision before a sender finished transmitting; 64 bytes guaranteed that, so any shorter frame must be a collision remnant.

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From Quiz: NETW1 / Ethernet Switching | Updated: Jul 05, 2026