DELL R720 & ESXi 5.0 Network Connectivity Loss on Intel I350 NIC

Question

Hi all, we are experiencing a very annoying problem with our brand new vmware cluster.   - 2 Dell R720 servers - 2 dell powerconnect 5524 switches - Dell powervault md3200 SAN vmware ESXi, 5.0.0, 623860   driver: igb            version: 3.2.10        firmware-version: 1.5-2bus-info: 0000:43:00.2   we already upgraded driver to version 4.0.17-1OEM with no results Each server has 2 quad port Intel I350 Gigabit network card and 4 i350 integrated ports. On these ports sometimes the network connection is lost, the nic is marked as down in vsphere client with a red cross above it, if i select the nic and open the speed dialog and press ok (no need to change 'autodetect' default setting), the link comes up again. No errors reported on vmkernel.log. Dell support has already replaced all nics but the problem did not resolve. if I try to unplug the cable and plug in again nothing happens, the only thing to do to solve the problem is reboot or select network speed dialog and click ok.   This happans in turn on serveral vmnics attached to virtual switches (sometimes vmnic6, sometimes vmnic7,...) .   On vmware forums I saw a thread regarding similar problems on Broadcom nics, but does not seem to apply to my case.   Any help would be much appreciated!   thanks in advance

Complete Networ · Answer

We are having the same problem with ESXi 5.0 on an R720 with an I350 NIC. Will keep an eye on this thread and/or update if we manage to fix.

vmax70 · Answer

We are working with dell support to fix this issue. They suggested to disable eee on 5524 switches using

no eee enable

after applying this workaround yesterday we had no disconnections, we'll wait some day and update the thread.

sbirbeck · Answer

Had exactly the same problem - vSphere ESXi 5.1 on Dell R720, Intel i350 daughterboard and quad port PCI-e card - vmknics were randomly losing connections / disconnecting / converging at 10Mbps etc to Dell PowerConnect switch ports.

Clicking on an affected NIC in the vSphere Client, not changing anything, then clicking ok (so still auto-negotiate) caused the NIC/link to come back up after a couple of seconds.

Setting no eee enable appears to have fixed it but early days yet!

Complete Networ · Answer

I used the Dell repository manager to download and update the system with the latest firmware. Apparently there was a update for the NIC firmware on 9/10/2012 that did not come installed from the factory. System has been up for 4 days now without a problem.

Mercury-2537 · Answer

Having the same problem:

new R720

ESXi5.1

DGS-1100-24 DLINK switch

I350 NIC ports connected to the DLINK switch will drop connection to the switch. I updated BIOS, IDRAC, NIC, LC firmware to the latest found on Dell's website. Didn't help.

Update the igb driver to the latest available. Didn't help.

Anyone been able to resolve this issue?

Complete Networ · Answer

Our system has been up for a month straight since updating the firmware. Call Dell tech support or use the repository manager to make sure you have the latest firmware. If you use the repository manager, create a bootable Linux ISO to update the firmware. I've found the bootable Linux ISO to be the most reliable when applying firmware updates.

PowerEdge Hardware General

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