Opti 9020s with Intel I217-LM nics causing network issues

Subscribing to this thread.  I don't have the 9020 but I have brand new E6440 (Haswell with I217 nic) that are giving me fits with OS deployment.  Hanging on "Setup is installing devices"....strange SCCM client behavior.  Going to check NIC settings as well.  Maybe this is the price of being on the bleeding edge of models?

There's an new updated BIOS, A05, for the 9020 AIO, so there may be an update for the 9020 soon.  If it fixes the problem please let us know.

I don't know about "official" but for me I had to strip out and go down to barebones drivers.  Started adding them in one at a time.  In the end, the driver that worked for me was Intel(R) Ethernet Connection I217-LM.  Version 12.6.47.0.

I also changed my task sequence to apply drivers prior to the Network Settings step.

Finally, for newer drivers you need to inject KB2685811 - Update for Kernel-Mode Driver Framework version 1.11 for Windows 7 x64.  This probably was not related to the NIC issues but it did hang us up on the E6440.  At least one driver used this new framework and the task sequence would not work until this was injected.  Fortunately SCCM 2012 makes it easy to apply updates to your OS images.  

My company has just experienced this very issue.  Has there been any official fix for this yet from either Intel or Dell?

We have an issue with our HP800 boxes generating a lot of multicast (IPv6) traffic when they go to sleep (they completely flood the network).

Temporary resolution was to turn of AMT in BIOS. We will have to contact HP to get this one sorted. 

Thank you for posting.  Good to know there is a BIOS connection.  Same Intel I217-LM nics, or different? 

Hi All,

Just coming across this same issue as a part of a HW Refresh, but have not seen it happen first hand but through feedback from my team as I was away. I'd love to do some testing in our environment to confirm the Dell Optiplex 9020's are indeed the cause but it affects other things on our network to the point it will cost the business money when they go down.

Anyway I was wondering with respect to the the IPv6 multicasting that is occurring which eventually floods the network is this occurring for people on machines when they are still in the active state? Or does it occur when the PC's go to sleep as has been noted in this thread as well? We know it is the Dell's causing this issue because once they got taken off the network things went back to normal.

Feedback appreciated TIA

Anyway I was wondering with respect to the the IPv6 multicasting that is occurring which eventually floods the network is this occurring for people on machines when they are still in the active state? Or does it occur when the PC's go to sleep as has been noted in this thread as well? We know it is the Dell's causing this issue because once they got taken off the network things went back to normal.

Same here, issue only while machines were sleeping. We have just unchecked the ipv6 settings and that seems to have done the trick. it was occurring 2 - 3 times a week, but has not reoccurred since disabling the ipv6 a couple of months back. 

I meant "AMT" not "AMP" setting in BIOS...typo..

Apologies for the late response....yup, same NIC in an HP800 SFF model. We looked at the IPv6 traffic generated and found that computers are trying to locate network resources. Speaking with HP they advised that with AMP enabled each computer is meant to do a short discovery and then stop the spam.

Strange thing is that this is happening on only one of our sites so I suspect that IPv6 is not properly configured on that subnet which is why the network resources are not being discovered. Anyhow... disabling AMP fixed the issue for us on this particular site. Computers are now sleeping without any issues. 

I received a call from Dell Executive Escalations today, and pointed them to this forum post. As an update to my own situation, none of the machines we deployed have exhibited the problem in the time since October.

Both groups of machines did not have the problem anymore, so it appears that either unbinding IPv6 within windows or disabling the power management features for the NIC driver are both acceptable work-arounds until Dell figures out the root cause.

We did not apply any BIOS updates to new 9020s we've ordered and used the BIOS revision sent from the factory. I've been instructing our team to both disable IPv6 and disable the power management features (when available). Our imaging process loads the drivers from Dell's SCCM management pack, and it appears to take away the options that come with the factory driver.

On a side note, since I first encountered the problem, the team in charge of network operations campuswide has indicated to me that they have observed other departments on campus exhibiting the same problem with 9020s. I suppose I was probably one of the first departments to receive and deploy 9020s and the problem is just now becoming more widespread on campus as more people order them.

I will post here when Dell gets back to me or if I have new info.

-Gordon

[quote user="Mathetos"] Glad to know I'm not crazy!   I did resolve the issue by going to Adapter Properties, clicking Configure, and deselecting everything on the Power Management tab.  The nic no longer does anything when the system sleeps, and my network issues disappeared completely.  (Settings like the above mentioned "respond to ARP when asleep" etc.)   That resolved my issues completely.  Hope that helps.   It's a weird problem given that Intel nics are so common.  I wonder if we got a weird hardware issue.

I have started applying the power management settings fix to my computers to see if it solves the issue. One other thing to note is that someone on our team disabled IPv6 as another troubleshooting step when we first started encountering the problems, and that seemed to work also.

Those computers still had the power management settings set at the default. So at this point, I have some computers that have IPv6 disabled but power management settings enabled, and other computers that have IPv6 enabled but power management settings disabled.

I will see if the problems come back on either groups of machines. I don't think either of these work-arounds are true solutions, since what if someone actually wants to use IPv6 or the power management features on these computers? In our environment its not a big deal yet, but it would be nice to narrow things down to the actual root cause.

Based on the notes from Dell about the BIOS A03 fixes, they seem to be actively working on the issue, so I hope there is some kind of answer soon (that won't also carry the risk of bricking the machine)

-Gordon

[/quote]

I received a call from Dell Executive Escalations today, and pointed them to this forum post. As an update to my own situation, none of the machines we deployed have exhibited the problem in the time since October.

Both groups of machines did not have the problem anymore, so it appears that either unbinding IPv6 within windows or disabling the power management features for the NIC driver are both acceptable work-arounds until Dell figures out the root cause.

We did not apply any BIOS updates to new 9020s we've ordered and used the BIOS revision sent from the factory. I've been instructing our team to both disable IPv6 and disable the power management features (when available). Our imaging process loads the drivers from Dell's SCCM management pack, and it appears to take away the options that come with the factory driver.

On a side note, since I first encountered the problem, the team in charge of network operations campuswide has indicated to me that they have observed other departments on campus exhibiting the same problem with 9020s. I suppose I was probably one of the first departments to receive and deploy 9020s and the problem is just now becoming more widespread on campus as more people order them.

I will post here when Dell gets back to me or if I have new info.

-Gordon

Thank you for posting, please let us know if you get an official resolution to the issue.

Bob