DL380 G3 slow response

[David Draper]

I have 4 Dl380 G3 servers running W2K/W2K3 (updated service packs/fixes and drivers), 2 work OK, 2 keep disappearing off the network, you cannot ping them and any mapped drives just timeout. The servers seem to be running OK with no faults reported, all diagnostic test are clear. I have had a network engineer look at the core switches they are connected to and they are OK with no spanning tree/VLAN/Broadcast problems. This problem occurs continuously and is not related to LAN traffic as I'm still getting the problem now and I'm the only person here. Anyone any ideas?

[JohnWRuffo]

David:

Are you using both NIC's on the server or are you using only one port?

If only one port is used, try using the second port (i.e., config the second NIC) and see if the system still falls off the network. If it does, these systems should still be under warranty...

[Chris Turnbull]

Had a similar problem once - dual NICs were configured to load balance, once I moved them to failover on fault they behaved fine. They had passed diags fine, as did the switch - had me going crazy for a while till the penny dropped.

[David Draper]

I only use one NIC on each server and have tried swapping to other NIC but still have the same problem. I have also tried pairing NIC's to fallover on failure but still same problem.

[Robert Cunillera]

Take a look at each server's mac address.
If they have been cloned the reported mac addresses are the same and your switched could get confused.
One easy way to reset it, is to change the value at "Locally Administered Address" parameter on your NIC

[David Draper]

The servers were not cloned but were installed individually. I have checked MAC addresses for conflicts and there are none, I have given the card I am using on one of the servers a new 'Locally Administrered Address' but the problem still exists.

I was scanning the forum for any similar problems and came across one in the network forum back in March 2004 with the same server. A motherboard change did not resolve the problem so they disabled the two internal NIC's and installed a seperate NIC card. That suggests to me a problem with the actual hardware/firmware of the internal NIC's. Has anyone any other suggestions that I can try first?