PE2900 Network Problem

I’m trying to solve a server connection problem and need to know where to look for the problem

I recently replaced a PE2600 with a brand new PE2900. The new server has 2 on board Broadcom NetExtreme II NICs. The old server had one onboard Intel Pro/1000 XT NIC and one add-in Intel Pro/1000 MT NIC.

At this time I am only using one NIC on the new server and have the 2nd one disabled. The older 2600 was running Windows 2000 Server and the new machine is running Windows 2003 server. Of course, this problem only started happening after installing the new program.

The issue is that when my users try to map a drive to the server, ping the server, run their specific client application, anything that involves communication with the server first thing in the morning, the communication fails. When I try to ping the server, it will have 100% packet loss for maybe 15-20 attempts. Then, for whatever reason, it will start working and be fine for the rest of the day.

I've updated the NIC drivers to the latest that I can find on the Dell site and it made absolutely no difference.

Any ideas or suggestions? At this point this is an inconvenience, as the users can eventually get into their application. But, it's definitely something that I need to get fixed.

Thanks.