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659069
Broadcom 5709C Teaming issues in Win2008 R2
Hi all,
We currently have a Dell R710 that is used for an SQL Server database server. It is a future production system that will be heavily used, so we want to enable teaming on the 4 5709 NICs that are present on this R710. But, we are having some serious issues with teaming. As for the moment, all NICs are connected to the same Cisco 2960G switch. They are all on the same VLAN. In the near future, we are planning to buy another switch for redundancy, but it is not relevant here.
I have downloaded and installed the latest firmware of the NIC from the Dell web site ( link )
I have downloaded the latests Broadcom drivers and BACS from Broadcom web site ( link )
Then, I decided to give a try to teaming. I fire up BACS 3, create a Team with all my 4 NICs in it without LiveLink enabled.
BACS does it things and a new Load Balance NIC is created in Windows. This new NIC is DHCP so I open up the properties, edit them and enter a static IPv4. Everything runs smooth for a couple of hours and then no responses from the server through the network. I use IPMI to go on the server, it won't log me in, the server seems to be crashed. I hard reboot it and everything is back online including the Load Balance NIC.
It stays fine for a about a day and then crash again. I then decide to deactivate the teaming and run only on 1 NIC for the moment. I have, according to Dell and Broadcom web sites, all the latests drivers, firmwares and softwares. Windows is updated.
Any ideas why our server freezes randomely like this ? There is nothing in the Event Log of Windows and no BSOD to analyze. I can confirm that the freezes are due to the teaming, because the server was stable for 2 months before I enabled teaming 2 days ago. Should I have disabled something before enabling teaming ?
Thanks for any help,
Guillaume.
scbates930
2 Posts
1
October 23rd, 2013 04:00
To fix this we did the following
Now we have teaming too.:emotion-2: Hope you have similar success TTIME1
JOHNADCO
847 Posts
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August 3rd, 2011 15:00
Nice follow up... Thanks to this post, I just got an R415 and sure enough, disable drac and bammo this works fine. It wasn't crashing, but it wasn't working right either.
joejohnston
1 Message
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August 3rd, 2011 15:00
Guillaume,
I know it has been a while, but for anyone searching the web I thought I would post this. The problem you are seeing is an issue with the teaming software. The server network becomes unstable when you place the on board NICs into a team. My troubleshooting has lead me to the iDrac card. If you do not include that card in your team, it will function fine (at least mine did). Dell could not verify this, nor could they give me a real solution.
If anyone else has any input, it is welcomed.
M.P.Schneider
1 Message
0
October 13th, 2011 12:00
I too am having the same problem with NIC teaming. We have 4 new Dell server running various hardware configurations and Windows 2008 versions. All servers have teamed NICs using BACS2 and two on-board interfaces. All 4 servers also have an iDRAC enabled and functioning. All 12 data cables are plugged into the same switch. We are not using the iDRAC as part of the NIC team.
We are experiencing a problem with only one of the servers. The problem is a Dell R810 48 processors and 160Gb RAM with an iDRAC Enterprise card. Windows Server R2 Standard was originally installed and was then given an inplace upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterpeise SP1. After the upgrade to Enterprise Edition the NIC team would cease to communicate after a few hours or sometimes a few days. After a hard reboot, it would work well again, for a while anyway. I have worked with Dell, Microsoft and Broadcom to determine that we are running the most current drivers and BACS2 teaming software. Dell has even replaced the Mainboard, thinking it might have been a hardware issue. It's not hardware related.
The reason I am posting this is because we have 3 other servers at the same location, plugged into the same switch and all running iDRAC (2 Enterprise, 1 Standard) cards that are not having any problem with teamed NICs. What else besides iDRAC cards could cause the NIC team to stop responding? Any help is appercated.
--Schneider
Jirkav
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6 Posts
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March 13th, 2012 01:00
We are having the same problem with DELL R710. I try upgrade latest driver from Broadcom and use BASCP4 for create Teeam over 4 NICs. After few hour server lost connection to network and totally hang. I can´t logon to it over virtual console and need use hard reset by iDRAC. In the same networ we have 6 identical servers. 3 servers are ESXi hypervisor without any problems. 3 servers witch Windows 2008 R2 have issue with teaming.
SachinC79
1 Message
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May 25th, 2012 03:00
We have the same kind of issue with same model of server i.e. DELL PowerEdge R710 and same OS Windows 2008 R2 Standard edition SP1.
Anyone got its solution.?........ Please help.
Dazxz
1 Message
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June 27th, 2012 10:00
Similar issue with 2 Broadcom BCM5716C NetXtreme II cards on an R310 with Windows 2008 R2 and SQL 2012 Standard doing SQL replication job.
Kept giving me "TCP provider: The semaphore timeout period has expired" errors in the event logs.
Took me a while to find this page, but breaking the Teaming and just using one network card fixed the problem straight away.
Strange thing was that the replication still worked, but it just kept dropping the connection and taking 5 minutes or so to reconnect.
This problem needs to be addressed! Come on Dell!
tomaszg
39 Posts
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July 31st, 2012 19:00
Similar isse with: R510 and different branded server + Broadcom NIC Team Balance SLB + Cisco SGE2000 or different switch.
They just LOST whole network setup (including several VLANs), so now I always create "saved settings" to file of team configs and restore them if needed.
R510 lost settings after switch reboot and did not restored after server reboot.
Other server lost settings after reboot and did not restored them also.
Looks like Broadcom BACS3 bug. Waiting for an update.
WARNING: iDRAC needs NIC as "dedicated". Doing firmware update sometimes restores it as "shared" which causes network disturption to whole TEAM.
tomaszg
39 Posts
0
August 7th, 2012 12:00
This seems to be fixed in BACS4, BACS3 has this bug.
BACS4 is not available for Win XP/2003, only on Vista and up.
We did some VLAN+TEAMING testing today, all fine after disconnecting/reconnecting/removing/adding..
TTime1
2 Posts
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April 11th, 2013 11:00
Hi, Here we have R510 servers. I get lots of "the network link is down, check the cable is plugged ..." in event logs.
When I restart the server, it usuallys goes better for a while.
It's completely abnormal to face such issue ... my server is in production already, and the more traffic it gets the worse it becomes ...
tomaszg
39 Posts
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April 11th, 2013 22:00
Hi, Here we have R510 servers. I get lots of "the network link is down, check the cable is plugged ..." in event logs.
This could be due STP/RSTP/MSTP enabled on ports, where R510 is connected.
scbates930
2 Posts
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June 14th, 2013 09:00
We had similar issue with our broadcoms on A couple of dell servers - what fixed ours so we could keep going but without teaming:
1. Uninstall the broadcom tools that manage the teaming etc.
2.Upgrade the firmware on the broadcoms ( Network_Firmware_THCKX_WN_7.4.8.exe package) this may be optional.
3. Used the BRoadcom driver from Broadcom website Version win_b57_x64-15.4.0.17.
>>Result I have the 2 on board Nics working again:emotion-2:. But no teaming.:emotion-6:
ozesati
1 Message
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October 22nd, 2013 15:00
All mentions fixes here are incorrect. What is happening is when you team the NICs. Both NIC are sending the same traffic out on 2 or more NIC thus creating a flap on the switch. This is causing switch to see two packet coming from the same MAC address on all teamed NICs and it creates a conflict and switch discards packets.
TTime1
2 Posts
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October 23rd, 2013 00:00
Hello,
Thank you for this interesting piece of information.
However, I suppose everything was done the way it should, do you have a suggestion on what should be done ? This "NIC teaming" is supposed to offer a fail over option with two routers, but from what I understand both cards are sending both the same information at the same time ? Is it an issue with the software (this BROADCOM BAC 4), in this case do you know about alternatives ? Is it a wrong configuration, in this case you you help with the solution ? Is it finally an issue at the switches that are wrongly configured ?
Thanks for your help and contribution, this is a problem we are fighting with since several months ...