Strange Network Issue

GiB

GiB

GiB

Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
154
Location
in a house
Hi guys got a strange problem,

I have setup a new server at work and I have done this on a Dell R710 using hyper-v, basically this has 3 nics teamed.
Everything works pretty well except every now and then the network has a go slow. I can recreate this easily when I try to add a printer on the dc with search the network for printers option. Machines on the network pinging the dc will shoot up to 700ms etc and occasionally drop off the network for a few seconds, if i stop the search everything goes back to normal. I have the server plugging straight into a 48port gigabit switch, that in turn feed another 3 48 port gigabit switches those then feed other swtiches around the building.

Another example is i have a machine running DI Radio plays perfect until i run the search for printers option, it then drops the radio etc. If I plug the that machine directly into the switch with the servers there is no problem it pings perfect and does not drop. I have swapped out this switch thinking it maybe that and the problem is still there. I have updated firmware on the switch but the problem is still there. The switches are netgear 748t's not the best i know but I work with limited spends:)

It almost like the netgears cannot handle the amount of data being shoved into them but even then surely they shouldnt drop connections etc? Could it be something plugged into the network? etc anyway I m at a loss and dont know how to fix it so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas etc.

Its driving me crackers as i assume that everything should be running super slick and i would love it to run that way.

Cheers in advance

Pete
 
Last edited:
Three things;
How much broadcast traffic is hitting your ports?
How many switches are between the hosts and the DC?

I've had problems with the LACP on the gigabit L2 Netgear switches with them not switching packets properly or just dropping the teaming altogether.
It works fine on the entry level HP Procurve switches though - probably not very helpful I know ;)
 
Have you disabled the nic teaming? That would be the first thing i would try. Also consider assigning the VM's to individual nics instead of teaming them.
 
Not sure what the R710's onboard card is, but we had huge problems (slowdowns, MAC addresses stuck, VMs losing network access etc) with the Broadcom cards in the R810 when used with HyperV - and this is for a commodity trading platform, so bad times were had.

All the issues mysteriously went away when some Intel cards were used to replace them. The Broadcoms were fine to use for management traffic though, so not a total loss.
 
Have solved the problem yeah it was the team nics, there appears to be a problem with the Broadcom NIC in a team, anyhow no failsafe but the network is running sweet now with no problems if only a little bit slower for some transfers.

I m happy now and will leave it at that, maybe some nice intel nics at some point.

Cheers for your help guys
 
Broadcom NIC teaming and Hyper-V is a massively disaster basically, they don't work at all with server core and fairly sporadically with the full server versions. Your options are either don't team them or buy new NICs. Microsoft know this to be the case incidentally but won't admit it without some pushing...
 
Really surprised at this considering how the dell is marketed etc aimed at. Still I now know how to fix this, anyone recommend me a nice set of dual nic's as a replacement for this server?

ta
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom