NIC team oddity !

[john mills_3]

Right oh chaps and chapesses.

I have a BL20pG2 that's in an enhanced
enclosure that, for some months, has quite
happily run with 3 NIC's in a Fail on Fault
team.
All of a sudden the server cannot be contacted
and after an iLO logon was found to have the
team (in network connections)to be disabled,
but all 3 NICs in an OK and operating state.
There's nothing in any of the logs (either
Microsoft or HP) to suggest where to start.

Anyone with any ideas ?

[Oleg Koroz]

OS ?
NIC Driver ?
NCU Release ?
Reseat NIC ?
Dissolve Team Test one Port at time

Update SW if needed
http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/index.html

swap card from another server for test
you have two NIC on the Mezzanine and one on the board

[john mills_3]

Well the blade has the latest psp on it (windows 2003 sp1) so it's not a driver
issue. You can't reseat NIC's in a BL.

All the nic connections, according to
windows were OK. It was just the team
connection that was disabled. The NCU is
8.37.00.

NCU will let me look at the team but the
actual connection is disabled so the server
is off the network !!

[Jaragon · Accepted solution]

try this out

Get the latest drivers for the Nic(9.52 at the time) , latest NCU(8.40 at the time) , and the firmware for the NIC.

1. Go to the network connections, into the network control panel(where you see you ipx, ip and other protocols) uninstall Network Config Util for Both Nics.

2. Go to Device Manager and remove both nics.

3. Reboot the server (Exit any automatic install on boot up)

4. Execute the latest Drivers File.

5. Execute the latest NCU setup.

6. Run the latest F/W upgrade if necessary

7. Configure the cards.

It's important to do the steps above in order, or additional networking issues may be seen

[john mills_3]

@jaragon - cheers dude.
It turned out to be nothing to do with
drivers or firmware !
Root cause is still unknown, but the fix,
as jaragon pointed out, is to remove the
teaming from the nic properties, various
reboots and then a reinstall of the team
under NIC properties :-)

Still haven't found what caused the Team
connection to become disabled but ..... at
least my mail bridge head is now back on the
air - hurray