Ok, so i solved this problem while waiting for Dell to come back to me. Its the most stupid thing i have ever seen. It has to do with green mode....  Apparently green mode is : 
I've got 40 new 1108s, all nicely configured with port 1, 9,10,11,12 configured as trunks with a default vlan of 1. I have static addresses in all of the switches, and can ping and talk to the switches on port 1 no problem. BUT, with exactly the same settings on ports 9-12 (as on port 1), i can't plug a computer into the "Uplink" labelled ports, i can't ping the switch's IP address on default vlan. I tried connecting the two ports 9 of two switches with cat6, and with PC plugged in to port 1, i can ping the IP of the switch i am plugged into, but not the switch attached to the trunk. To make it more confusing,  if i connect a dumb switch to the UPLINK ports (9) on each switch, and my pc to the dumb switch, i can talk to each switch perfectly through the dumb switch. Why would the two switches not be linking on an "Uplink" port   What is the difference between it and a normal port when the config is exactly the same ?   Basically set to trunk, tagged all vlans, untagged default vlan 1 I'm confused !  Any help greatly appreciated...  Cheers, Dan  
N1108 Series -- "Uplink" ports do not forward