Network Problem on Poweredge 2900

Question

I posted this on the Poweredge General Hardware board, but thought I try here also... 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 server. 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.

mombodog · Answer

You might look in device manager and do a properties on the nic in question and look for a power management tab and un tick the 'allow this computer to turn off device to save power' box..   Also check any other power management settings also, check bios settings ect..   If all else fails, try the other NIC

Strats2 · Answer

It's the Broadcom NetXtreme II NIC's.  They are known to be problematic with Windows Server 2003.  I ran into the same problem on a PE 1950, where I just could not get Active Directory to install.  I ended up adding in a Intel PCIe NIC to get around it. There are instructions to follow to disable ToE on those Broadcom NIC's, which supposedly should fix the problem.  I followed them though, and still couldn't get the things to work right.   Do yourself a favor and get an Intel card.  I spent a week coming to this conclusion.

pcmeiners · Answer

'When I try to ping the server, it will have 100% packet loss for maybe 15-20 attempts.'   I am assuming you Pathping the server.. are the losses  at the server card, not at the switch or any router?   Try driver directly from Broadcom   Have you run the diagnoistics... http://bcr2.uwaterloo.ca/~brecht/servers/docs/PowerEdge-2600/en/Broadcom/UG/index.htm   Can you get this server off the net (off hours) so you can get a direct cable connection to another machine.   Have you hard coded the Speed/duplex settings, from lowest to highest?   If managed switch, have you tried hard coding speed/duplex on the port? If managed switch, have you checked the ports for a buildup of errors?    If you have Win 2000 machines, disable SMB signing on server/2000 wks Checked power setting in the bios   'this problem only started happening after installing the new server.' No, when Dell decided to use Broadcom.

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