On ours, the 2900 ran just fine from the previous summer ('06) until SP2 was
installed for WS03 last spring. Immediately after that, we started
experiencing failures with the NIC. Everything was up-to-date, hardware tested
fine, etc. Even with the Mb replaced (among other things--that was the last
thing tried), it continued to fail and we finally installed a PCI Intel NIC
that our Dell sales rep helped to get sent to us to resolve this case--It runs
fine on that.
Last time I tried setting it back to use one of the Broadcoms was around
September when there were newer drivers, and there have been more newer drivers
released since then, so I'd like to try again, just need to catch a window
where it won't cause downtime for the kids if it starts crashing again. We
also have a nearly identical 2900 box running at our other high school that
does NOT have the same problems. Much more to that story, but I'll leave it at
that for now.
The Exchange server is a 2950 though, and the settings below have helped that
one big time. We applied the changes to all 2950 and 2900 servers (all of our
gen 9+ Dells) and things have been much better.
-Bonnie
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 2:22 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Broadcom NIC problems?
When one of our 2900s was delivered last year one of the on-board
Broadcom NICs seemed largely dead, ended up needing a motherboard
replacement. I'll think about mirroring the settings you're using
below, though. Thanks for the tips.
David
-----Original Message-----
From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 12:22 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Broadcom NIC problems?
This sounds a LOT like the strange issue we had with our 2950 running
E2k7 (can't just wipe and install x32) where Outlook would "hiccup" and
lose connections to the server. Server appeared hung, but once logged
on, was fine and users could reconnect. Updated firmware, drivers,
Windows, Exchange patches, etc, and could not find a source. On the
verge of calling PSS, but tried the chimney stuff first, and voila,
haven't seen the problem since. We've turned it off for now on all of
our 2900s and 2950s, and have seen great improvements in several servers
where we probably didn't realize there were issues.
On ours, I'm importing a reg file with the following
-------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]
"EnableTCPA"=dword:00000000
"EnableRSS"=dword:00000000
"EnableTCPChimney"=dword:00000000
-------------
And, I'm also setting RSS to disabled in the advanced properties of the
Broadcom NIC (in device manager). A reboot after that and it's all off.
Will probably try turning things back on one at a time when this issue
seems to settle down more, but at this point, it still appears to be a
problem for us on the latest drivers, etc.
BTW--we have one 2900 server that was so bad we had to stuff an Intel
NIC in the box after it continued to BSOD on Broadcom drivers and Dell
had replaced all the hardware (we changed cables, ports, etc first).
Has worked flawlessly since--hoping to try removing that NIC with the
chimney off soon, but need to wait until mid-winter break when the kids
are gone in case it doesn't work. Point being, it seems to rear its
ugly head for us with the Broadcom NICs. YMMV
-Bonnie
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim McAtee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 11:03 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Broadcom NIC problems?
In the IP Chimney thread there was a link to an article that alluded to
more general issues with Broadcom drivers in Win2k3.
I'm seeing some issues with a Dell PE2950 that we recently put into
service as a web server. I first set the sysetem up using Windows
Server
2003 x64 and had serious network throughput problems. Even on the local
network (100 Mbps switch) I was seeing no better than about 130 kbps
throughput. This was (and still is) without the TOE enabled. I farked
around with it, trying different drivers until I finally gave up and
installed Win2k3 32-bit. Much better network speeds.
But what I'm seeing is now is an occasional hiccup where a web page
appears to take several seconds to load. This is actually a little
reminiscent of the original problem, as it would appear that the network
would experience varying speeds, with short periods of a couple seconds
that were extremely slow.
Looking at the page generation speeds, it's not the web or application
server, as the pages take just a fraction of a second to generate.
Everything points to continued networking problems. Web sites from
other servers in the same web farm don't display this behavior, so it
would seem to be something with the PE2950 and not the network itself.
Anyone else seeing something similar? Suggestions for either a fix, or
where to begin troubleshooting would be appreciated.
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