DL380 G3 Compatibility Issues With Windows 2003 - Networking Blues

[Alan Wong_6]

I'm having issues with a DL 380 G3 Running Windows 2003. The services that are currently running is Exchange 2003, Blackberry and pcAnywhere.

The system itself seems to have intermittent issues with ANY NIC seeing the firewall. The system is assigned a static IP and is connected directly to the firewall with a crossover.

The intermittent issues is that sometimes the NIC port will see the firewall & sometimes not. When it does see it, it drops after 4 hours and maybe after a reboot. When running ping or tracert from command prompt, I immediately get *Hardware Error*.

I'm having a very hard time isolating the issue. If I move the cable over the the 2nd onboard NIC port, it may work while port 1 doesn't. If I reboot, it may be vice versa. To rule this out, I installed a another NIC card in the machine and it still exhibits the same symptoms.

It's not the firewall or cables as both are brand new and I have replaced them with another Brand new one out of the box and the problem still persists. Firmware/drivers on the system and firewall are all up to date. I've played around changing the speeds on both NIC/Firewall to 10/half/full with no change in the issue.

Has anyone ever seen this bewildering problem.
Any advice or insight you can give would be greatly appreciated.

[Alan Wong_6]

One more thing. I've tried both a Sonicwall Pro 100 and also a Tele3 TZ with the same issues.