Windows 2008 and Broadcom NNI

Have a mixed network of (1) Windows 2008 and (3) Windows 2000 servers. Installed the 2900III Win 2008 server about April 1, sat idle but network attached until  4 days ago. Not quite idle, as I was testing it

Once I started serving files from it, the network crumbled... mappings disappeared, workstations and servers dropped off the network, browsing the network would either take forever or produce some or none of the machines on the network, server desktops would freeze, all servers would freeze. Server reboots corrected the situation for a couple of hours at most.

No TOE, every driver revision used, every conceivable card parameter was tried.

Turned off the new TCP stack modifications of Win 2008, which help temporarily

netsh interface TCP set global rss=disabled

netsh interface tcp set global chimney=disabled

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled

Installed an Intel Pro 1000 MT adapter, disabled the Broadcom interfaces.... instant relief, everything now works great.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Dell for the 3 days of extreme stress due to using  Broadcom NNI (Nearly  Network Interfaces) ... I really needed the stress work out, I never get one with Intel cards. Perhaps I should make a suggestion to Intel to produce "stressful" and "stress-less" drivers. I'm skipping my next Cardio Stress test...I know I don't need one after this.

I might add, antacids should be supplied with all servers equipped with the so called network interfaces... a few  doses of Ambien or Lunesta, would be a really nice touch.