NIC dies under heavy load

[DevilsPGD]

I'm running into a problem where under certain types of heavy load, my
NIC will stop responding.

After a few seconds Windows assigns a 169.254 class IP and I get an
eventlog report of "Driver status 1" from the NIC's drivers.

Nothing short of a reboot gets me connected again, I've tried an
ipconfig /release and /renew cycle, disconnecting and reconnecting the
ethernet cable, having Vista "repair" the NIC, uninstalling and
reinstalling the drivers from device manager.

In attempting to resolve this, I've upgraded the BIOS (longshot, I
know), installed ASUS' latest chipset and NIC drivers, Windows Update's
latest NIC drivers (newer then ASUS), and am currently on Intel's latest
chipset drivers (newer then ASUS) and my NIC's latest drivers from
Marvell (dated less then a month ago)

I can consistently reproduce the problem by copying thousands of small
files across the network, or by starting 2-3 separate copies of large
files across the network.

I've swapped the cables, switched out my network switch for a different
manufacturer, tested at gigabit and 100Mb speeds, turned off power
management on the NIC (using device manager), nothing has helped.

I've got a couple of these motherboards, and can reproduce the problem
both on my Vista system and on my 2008 system.

My current install is Vista Business x64 SP1, although I did encounter
the same problem in x86 RTM (I switched to x64 around when SP1 came
out), and I can also reproduce the problem on my other box, a 2008
Standard x64 server.

At this point I'm not sure what else to try, any suggestions?

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 clocked at 2.4 GHz (never overclocked)
Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
Chipset: Intel 975x
NIC onboard Marvell Yukon 88e8053
6GB of RAM on my desktop, 8GB on the desktop. I tried pulling all but
2GB out, no change.

Eventlog error report:
Error 10/3/2008 7:42:48 PM yukonx64 101 None
Log Name: System
Source: yukonx64
Date: 10/3/2008 7:42:48 PM
Event ID: 101
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Description:
Driver status 1

 

[Malke]

I'm running into a problem where under certain types of heavy load, my
NIC will stop responding.

After a few seconds Windows assigns a 169.254 class IP and I get an
eventlog report of "Driver status 1" from the NIC's drivers.

Nothing short of a reboot gets me connected again, I've tried an
ipconfig /release and /renew cycle, disconnecting and reconnecting the
ethernet cable, having Vista "repair" the NIC, uninstalling and
reinstalling the drivers from device manager.

In attempting to resolve this, I've upgraded the BIOS (longshot, I
know), installed ASUS' latest chipset and NIC drivers, Windows Update's
latest NIC drivers (newer then ASUS), and am currently on Intel's latest
chipset drivers (newer then ASUS) and my NIC's latest drivers from
Marvell (dated less then a month ago)

I can consistently reproduce the problem by copying thousands of small
files across the network, or by starting 2-3 separate copies of large
files across the network.

I've swapped the cables, switched out my network switch for a different
manufacturer, tested at gigabit and 100Mb speeds, turned off power
management on the NIC (using device manager), nothing has helped.

I've got a couple of these motherboards, and can reproduce the problem
both on my Vista system and on my 2008 system.

My current install is Vista Business x64 SP1, although I did encounter
the same problem in x86 RTM (I switched to x64 around when SP1 came
out), and I can also reproduce the problem on my other box, a 2008
Standard x64 server.

At this point I'm not sure what else to try, any suggestions?

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 clocked at 2.4 GHz (never overclocked)
Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
Chipset: Intel 975x
NIC onboard Marvell Yukon 88e8053
6GB of RAM on my desktop, 8GB on the desktop. I tried pulling all but
2GB out, no change.

Eventlog error report:
Error 10/3/2008 7:42:48 PM yukonx64 101 None
Log Name: System
Source: yukonx64
Date: 10/3/2008 7:42:48 PM
Event ID: 101
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Description:
Driver status 1

Since the same thing happens on all these motherboards with different
operating systems, you know the onboard NIC is at fault. Marvel NICs aren't
particularly good. Install a high-quality NIC (even high-quality NICs
aren't terribly expensive), disable the onboard one, and see if that makes
the difference.

Malke

 

[Jack \(MVP-Networking\).]

Hi
The good thing is that good PCI NIC (Like Intel) cost around $25 so there is
No point wasting time on Entry Level Onboard NICs when a need for heavy
load is essential.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106121
Jack (MS, MVP-Networking)

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Malke

Since the same thing happens on all these motherboards with different
operating systems, you know the onboard NIC is at fault.

The OSes involved are 2008 and Vista, both of which use the same code
base, so from a driver point of view, they're similar enough to be the
considered the same.

I tossed in a spare drive and installed XP SP3 x86, and cannot yet
reproduce the problem there, so it appears to be Vista specific.

From XP SP3 client to my 2008 Server, I can only push about 70Mb/s (not
that I spent a ton of time tweaking), whereas Vista is moving data
somewhat faster, 85Mb/s-95Mb/s for single sustained file transfers prior
to the NIC death (with my current connection being to a 100Mb port on
the switch rather then a gigabit port)

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <#[email protected]> "Jack

Hi
The good thing is that good PCI NIC (Like Intel) cost around $25 so there is
No point wasting time on Entry Level Onboard NICs when a need for heavy
load is essential.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106121

I'm hoping to avoid replacing the NIC, the cheapest add-on NIC I can
find would be around $100 per system (for a dual port gigabit PCIe NIC)

I could get single port NICs much cheaper, but I've only got one spare
PCIe slot, and from my own experience, PCI simply doesn't have the bus
bandwidth to drive gigabit ethernet.

I might go for one PCIe and one PCI NIC as I'm currently only running
one NIC on each machine on gigabit anyway, the other is just a
port-based VLAN that connects to an isolated test LAN.