Intermittent Network Prob. with 1600SC 1

[tcwinont]

I have a peculiar problem on a Dell PowerEdge 1600SC Windows 2000 Small Business Server, all updated (I believe).

My problem is I have about some 20 users on the machine with an appropriate number of CAL's. They have their typical folders mapped as drives on their systems.

Periodically throughout the day the server will stop my users dead in their tracks, not 'hang' their system, just have them 'waiting' almost like their application has stopped responding. What I have found that as a temporary fix is go to my server, disable my local network connection through control panel, network connections and then re-enable the connection and then my user's systems come back working for them. If they disable their network connection, their system will come back to them but of course they can't access the server until I do what I described above.

Needless to say that this is a big issue for me and I can tell when it happens when I hear a collective groan throughout the office.

I previously posted this at this thread

thread96-751179 had some suggestions there. After looking at my server, under 'Network adapters', there's 4 drivers installed, inter(R) PRO/1000 MT Network Connection; Interio(R) PRO/1000MT Network Connection - Packet Scheme; WAN Miniport (IP) - Packet Scheduler Miniport; WAN Miniport (Network Monitor) - Packet Scheduler Miniport. I think the first one is the critical one and was provided by Intel, dated 5/27/2003; version 7.l0.37.10 and is digitally signed.

Any insights or comments would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tcwinont

 

[TriniTek]

Tcwinont,
Does this happen at any particular time of day? Like first thing in the morning or at lunch? Could be too much traffic at once at that particular time. How about your hubs/swtiches/routers? Are they all working properly and fast enough to handle the loads?
Your licenses are they per server or per seat? This could cause a problem too. Other than these suggestions, I'm not too sure.
I'll get back to you if I think of anything else...
Ohh yeah... what about DNS servers, how many do you have? Is that particular server one of them, or the only one?

TiniTek.

 

[dfollis]

I am having the exact same issue with a Dell 600SC (SBS2003) at two different customer sites connected to two different switches. As far as I can tell they are only getting 10Mbps thoughput. Both NICs are hard coded to 100Mbps Full. Unfortunately the switches are not manageable.

There are thousands of posts about this NIC causing problems in Dell's forums. This kind of thing really pisses me off. What can you depend on anymore??? This guy had one solution:

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=pw_network&message.id=565

I have downloaded the latest driver from Intel and disabled the setting as he described without any improvement. I wonder if this is related?

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315237

Anyone else have a solution to this very critical issue. Who in the heck is the QA person at Dell anyway???

 

[technome]

Two cents.....

Has your cable infrastructure been tested with a cable tester to certify the cat 5 installation. It is so rare for a NIC/driver to be the problem. One bad cable in your system will produce results like Tcwinot has. LED testers are useless, countless times I have seen LED tester pass a cable, only to be failed with a CAT 5 tester such as the Fluke 2000 or 4000.

 

[dfollis]

Those are good points. The main cabling is less than 1 year old at both locations and is CAT 5e terminated on CAT5 patch panels 568B. It is possible that some of the patch cords are not up to snuff, I will verify. What do you recommend for monitoring or disagnosing the source of the issue without buying a $15000 Fluke?

BTW, when I set my NIC back to Autosense and disabled the Interrupt Moderation Rate from the Intel Pro Set application it started working much faster. I'm now getting something more like 60 to 80 percent bandwith were as before I was never getting more than 15. I'm doing single large file copies as a benchmark from another PC running 100Mbps Full. I am seeing a consistant 10 bad outgoing packets per second on each 600SC (different customer sites) when using permon. Any thoughts on that? As other posts have indicated the network was fine and the older and much slower previous server actually was faster than the new Dell. Doesn't make you look very good in the customer's eyes.

 

[technome]

Perhaps the new server server/system/cable is producing more bad packets/second then the old system, and overwhelming the network. I can see you understand the benefits of a managed switch, after a while you can diagnois many problems with the management ability

You can rent cat5 testers. I rented them in the past from telephone contractors, or pay one to test and correct any problems
You can get units off of Ebay, did not see a Fluke 4000 today but they come up

Purchased a Microtest scanner off of Ebay acouple of years back for $450.00, heard a couple of people go theirs off ebay and the units needed calibration $ 250.00 extra. Batteries are generally not great, but useable with included power supplies. Nice to own a unit, any doubtful cable or patch cord can be tested in a few minutes.

For cat 5 testing these would be sufficient

The Microscanner is not quite the one needed, better to have the Pentascanner PRO and the SUPER Injector

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3072616464&category=51188

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2589631978&category=25418

Lastly, check out your server licensing applet, event viewer as mentioned by Trinitek

Good luck

 

[technome]

Tcwinot, misread the last part of your post. Some errors are normal. There are multiple reasons for errors; but again most errors are caused by cable faults, most common are mixed up wires( wire wrap), interference picked up from not maintainig the wire wrap tightly at the termination ends ( near and far end). Then once in a while someone with little experience will kink, knot, stretch or sharply bend the wire. If your wires pass certification you should have few errors; note on you server line you will have more errors showing up then workstation lines, with a managed switch you can change parameters to lower the number.

 

[dfollis]

Thanks for the info and the links. My solution was to purchase a 3Com 8 Port Switch with 1 Gig uplink port ($135). I wanted to get a 24 Port with 2 Gig ports but couldn't find one in time. I also swapped out all the old CAT5 patch cables with new AllenTel CAT5e ones today.

Works like a champ. Server syncs up at 1Gbps and all clients are running at 100Mbps. Network is noticably faster.

Thanks again everyone. I should have known better but I haven't had this many problems with 100Mbps Ethernet for a long time. I'm definately not a fan of the Intel Pro 1000MT that Dell is utilizing.