Intel Dual Port NIC Question

SBS >> Intel Dual Port NIC Question We are running a Dell Poweredge 2900 and I have an Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual
Port NIC in the machine, running SBS2003 r2 (the Dell Broadcom adapters are
disabled in the BIOS). One of the ports (my external connection) connects to
my Gigabit switch at 1gb. The other port (internal connection) will only
connect at 100mbps. The adapter diagnostics says that the adapter is being
forced to a slower speed. I did the normal swapping of switches, cables and
made sure the drivers are current, but no luck. I talked to Intel, who
suggested completely removing and rinstalling the NIC drivers, which is my
next step.

Has anyone ever seen this behavior before? I thought about swapping the NIC
settings so that the port that runs at 1gb would be the internal and the
slower be the external, just to see what would happen. Any insight would be
appreciated.

Tom

Information Technology256

SBS >> Intel Dual Port NIC Question You shouldn't have to do anything at all for it to behave correctly. I'm
assuming both NIC are 1Gb. Connecting one to the 100Mb switch/router will
result in the NIC running at 100Mb. Connecting the other to the 1Gb switch
will allow the NIC to run at 1Gb. The only circumstances which would result
in the NIC running at a slower speed while connected to the 1Gb switch is
having an ethernet lead that is too long. The characteristice capacitance
and inductance of the ethernet lead increases as the ethernet lead
increases. This basically means that high frequency communications suffer
from distortion and the NIC or switch will automatically attempt to
successfully communicate at lower data rates. Standard switches will support
1000/100/10 Mbits/s so it will try those three modes starting at the
highest. If the lead is longer than 100m, it will not work at all.

If your server is running a DHCP with all the clients connected to it on one
NIC and the other NIC connected to your internet gateway/router/adsl modem,
you should always have your clients connected to the 1Gb switch as none of
the 'bottom bracket' routers/gateways/modems run higher than 100Mbit.

SBS >> Intel Dual Port NIC Question I just checked a clients Dell PowerEdge 2850 and it has that card in it...
Driver Version 6.3.6.31 and it see's 1GB Connection.

Are there any Other 1GB cards in PC's that are not showing a 1GB connection?
Your switch may not be working correctly?????

Russ

--

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Information on Small Business Server 2008 - http://www.sbs2008.com
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-

"TJS" <EMail@HideDomain.com> wrote in message
news:7AvEj.21880$EMail@HideDomain.com...
> We are running a Dell Poweredge 2900 and I have an Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual
> Port NIC in the machine, running SBS2003 r2 (the Dell Broadcom adapters
> are disabled in the BIOS). One of the ports (my external connection)
> connects to my Gigabit switch at 1gb. The other port (internal connection)
> will only connect at 100mbps. The adapter diagnostics says that the
> adapter is being forced to a slower speed. I did the normal swapping of
> switches, cables and made sure the drivers are current, but no luck. I
> talked to Intel, who suggested completely removing and rinstalling the NIC
> drivers, which is my next step.
>
> Has anyone ever seen this behavior before? I thought about swapping the
> NIC settings so that the port that runs at 1gb would be the internal and
> the slower be the external, just to see what would happen. Any insight
> would be appreciated.
>
> Tom
>

SBS >> Intel Dual Port NIC Question I rotated 3 different Gigabit hubs into the connection and it was always the
same, port one on the nic would connect at 1gb and the second port was
"slowed down" on connection. If I forced the 1gb connection it would
disconnect. I ran the internet connection wizard each time. My driver
version is 9.12.13.0 dated 12/11/2007 and the ProSet version is 12.4.38.0. I
just thought, is it the Proset software that could be causing this, and can
I just install the driver without the ProSet stuff? I'll ask Intel.

Anyway, I replaced the nic, got the same results. I put a second Intel dual
port nic in the system (enabling only one port on each card) and the
external internet will always connect at 1gb and the internal only at
100mbps. I talked to Dell, they were baffled too. I looked at the event logs
and saw that the nic is slowed down by something Intel calls SmartSpeed. The
message started to be logged when I did an Intel driver update last
November. Dell could only find one reference to disabling SmartSpeed and
that was in a Linux kernel.

I am reluctant to make involved configuration changes during the week. So
I'm going to call Intel and see what they can do, that seems like the next
logical step. I'll post back here.

Thanks,
Tom

"Russ (SBITS.Biz)" <EMail@HideDomain.com> wrote in message
news:%EMail@HideDomain.com...
>I just checked a clients Dell PowerEdge 2850 and it has that card in it...
> Driver Version 6.3.6.31 and it see's 1GB Connection.
>
> Are there any Other 1GB cards in PC's that are not showing a 1GB
> connection?
> Your switch may not be working correctly?????
>
> Russ
>
> --
>
> SBITS.Biz
> Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
> Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist.
> MCP, MCPS, MCNPS, (MCP-SBS)
> North America Remote SBS2003 Support - http://www.SBITS.Biz
> Information on Small Business Server 2008 - http://www.sbs2008.com
> Information on Essentials Business Server - http://www.ebs2008.com
>
>
>
> -
>
> "TJS" <EMail@HideDomain.com> wrote in message
> news:7AvEj.21880$EMail@HideDomain.com...
>> We are running a Dell Poweredge 2900 and I have an Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual
>> Port NIC in the machine, running SBS2003 r2 (the Dell Broadcom adapters
>> are disabled in the BIOS). One of the ports (my external connection)
>> connects to my Gigabit switch at 1gb. The other port (internal
>> connection) will only connect at 100mbps. The adapter diagnostics says
>> that the adapter is being forced to a slower speed. I did the normal
>> swapping of switches, cables and made sure the drivers are current, but
>> no luck. I talked to Intel, who suggested completely removing and
>> rinstalling the NIC drivers, which is my next step.
>>
>> Has anyone ever seen this behavior before? I thought about swapping the
>> NIC settings so that the port that runs at 1gb would be the internal and
>> the slower be the external, just to see what would happen. Any insight
>> would be appreciated.
>>
>> Tom
>>
>
>