DL370 G6 and NC375i issues

[Shane Pollard - Hallibu]

We recently purchased 4 new DL370 G6s with the standard NC375i "Integrated" Quad Port Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter.

The issues we are encountering with the new NC375i are as follows:

1) With Windows 2003 R2 x86 w/SP2 installed, the NIC Speed/Duplex cannot be set through device manager or through the HP teaming utility. Is there a way that this can be done?

2) If the server is powered up and allowed to POST, and then the NIC is plugged into the switch, the switch disables that port, almost as if it detects multiple MAC addresses on that port.

If anyone has any feedback, that would be great.

[Christian Bretterhofer]

Maybe same issue here:

Switch disables port after some time of usage.
Only Restart of Windows 2003 R2 x86 overcomes situation.

We tried SOHO switch and Cisco 2950. Same result. So we start thinking that firmware of NIC may be the reason. It makes this server nearly unusable

[Christian Bretterhofer]

Disabling/Enabling Networkadapter restores network connectivity too.
So i start thinking on a firmware bug?

[ChrisWork]

Hello!

Same issue here on three DL370. Cisco switch disables the ports because of bpdu packets send by the nic.

Nic Firmware is 4.0.406

I opend a call. I hope that helps.

Resetting the nics on RHEL5 does not help.

Any suggestions are welcome.

THX Chris

[Terry Hutchings]

Regarding problem #2:

Can you try disabling portfast on the switch ports that the server is plugged into?

[Tom Mucha_1]

Same issue on a ML370 G6 with the quad port NC375i running SBS 2008 x64. The NIC shutdown during some windows updates, and when the server came back up it seemed to hang at step 3 of 3 - 0% done.

So far my only solution has been to turn off portfast on that port in the cisco switch. I'm going to verify I have the latest firmware on the nic.

[Nicholas Litt]

Hi all,

I have experienced exactly the same issues when deploying Windows 2003 server and Windows 2003 server x64.

Thankfully I think I have found the solution to the network card dropping out.

You need to replace the network card driver with the following driver for 32bit windows 2003 systems:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=uk&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3884310&prodNameId=3884311&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=13&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-dc32e41c167440b58953852ded

For win 2003 x64 systems:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=uk&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3884310&prodNameId=3884311&swEnvOID=1113&swLang=13&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-efe6a22c2e904dc382d7e51d36

I believe the problem is all to do with the network card driver version which comes with the Proliant support pack V8.25. The network card driver which is applied "HP NC375i Integrated Quad port mulitfunction Gigabit driver" v4.0.406.11846 is dodgy.

Upgrading the driver via the appriate of the two links above will bring the driver version to v4.0.505.0. This seems to fix the problem!

I hope this helps.

Thanks

Nick

[RickPich]

Hi All;

I'm running the exact same configuration (hardware and OS) as Shane. I've tried the driver update Nick suggested, but no luck. Has anyone found a solution?

Thanks.

[Terry Hutchings]

The switch is detecting the embedded NICs as another switch, which causes the port to be disabled on the switch. I would recommend disabling this feature on the switch as a workaround until a permanent resolution is found.

HP is currently working on a new driver which resolves this type of behavior. The permanent fix is due to be released to the HP website in mid November.

[RickPich]

Terry, thank you very much. That was exactly the info I was looking for.

For anyone else who may be banging their head on this problem and running Cisco, disable spanning-tree on the switch port is the work around.