Gigabit networking stops working

  • Thread starter Thread starter TC
  • Start date Start date
T

TC

This one has been driving me nuts for about two months now.
I recently upgraded our small network from 100 to 1000mbit. I first
put in place a 1000bit switch to make sure it was working, and then
upgraded all of the systems to the same Netgear nic.
On one of the systems, the network card would fail randomly - either
doing lots of file transfers or not. The system would not act like it
was failed, but trying to disable it or manipulate the settings would
lock whatever program would try to do so. Reboot (soft or cold) would
fix it. This pattern would repeat every 7 to 10 days - fail, fail
again within 30 minutes to 5 hours, then not fail for 7 to 10 days.
Wash rinse, repeat.
I swapped cards between systems and the problem did not follow the
card - it stayed with the system. So I did the next logical thing,
replaced it with a Hawking el-cheapo gigabit nic, worked fine - until
the same problem repeated it self that night. Then the next evening.
Then the next morning.
I replaced the cables with different/better ones. Tried different
lengths (7' to 25'). Tried different ports on the switch. Nada.
Given that I've swapped out everything but the mobo and the os (mobo
is an AOpen B4xs, built-in lan disabled), and all the system checks
I've run on it show that the memory & cpu show it's ok, any
suggestions?
 
I swapped cards between systems and the problem did not follow the
card - it stayed with the system. So I did the next logical thing,
replaced it with a Hawking el-cheapo gigabit nic, worked fine - until
the same problem repeated it self that night. Then the next evening.
Then the next morning.
I replaced the cables with different/better ones. Tried different
lengths (7' to 25'). Tried different ports on the switch. Nada.
Given that I've swapped out everything but the mobo and the os (mobo
is an AOpen B4xs, built-in lan disabled), and all the system checks
I've run on it show that the memory & cpu show it's ok, any
suggestions?

Do the switch and the computer agree that they are running either half
or full duplex? Try setting up the connection as half duplex and see
what happens.
 
Do the switch and the computer agree that they are running either half
or full duplex? Try setting up the connection as half duplex and see
what happens.

As far as I can tell, they agree - the nic's say that they are, but
neither the Netgear nor the Realtek-based Hawking have any option to
turn Gigabit to Half (Netgear only allows 'auto' for GB, and Realtek
only has '1000/full').
 
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