No Domain Controller Found

[Ayman Altounji]

We are having issues when we rebut servers that there are no domain controllers found to validate the user logging on. If we wait a few more seconds after rebut user can log on. The problem is service accounts that run services are failing because during boot up the account cannot be validated. Once we log on we can start the services manually. Are they any issues with the Network Card drivers.

Thank you

[Ayman Altounji]

Do you see any error messages in the System Event Log?

[Ayman Altounji]

I get this too. I have an NT4 (SP5) exchange (5.5) server running backup exec 8. The network cards are redundant-teamed, so I wonder if its caused by the cards sorting themselves out?

[Ayman Altounji]

My bet is you are running Cisco switches and have not turn on Portfast. Once a Nic is powered on Cisco goes through an initial spanning tree calculation to verify this MAC address does not appear somewhere else on the network. If it did you would have a routing loop and down everything goes. However, in a trusted server environment you can turn on portfast and it will imediately begin forwarding packets. That will remove the blocks and let the system send and receive.

[Ayman Altounji]

I have the same issue, but it's more complicated than that... I have 38 servers, of which most have no issue, but one of my "generic" servers and 5 of my Compaq servers have, or HAD this issue. The generic server had an Intel dual NIC card. I noted that the version of the Intel driver was newer than a simlarly configured server on the same network. The fix on the generic was to install the old driver in place of the new. This fixed the problem. On one of the Compaq servers, I tried 3 different drivers, at which point I replaced the Compaq NICs with an Intel Dual NIC using the old driver...and it fixed the issue.

While the issue COULD be portfast here, then explain why this fixed the problem? It seems more likely that the Compaq driver is causing the issue, esp. considering we first started seeing this issue after a driver update last year. The problem I have now is that none of the new drivers work. I may revert back to the oldest Compaq network driver I can find... I'm sure I ahve some disks somewhere... Any better solution out there???