Question : Problem: On-board Intel PRO/1000 MT NIC keeps failing after 3-5 days

Our Dell PowerEdge 2800 server has twin on-board Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT NICs. Originally in 2005 the people that installed the server only connected one NIC to the switch. I upgraded the nic drivers and teamed the adapters last week and for 4 days it was working perfectly. Then suddenly connectivity to the server just fell apart, pings taking 400-500ms and often just timing out.

So I removed the cables and deleted the team, uninstalled the nics and reinstalled them, then connected only one network cable. So essentially I'm back to the original setup, but then after 3 days the same thing happened again.

Now I've changed the driver to the latest one Dell recommends, discarding the latest Intel. However, on reflection, I'm not 100% sure I've reconnected it to the original nic.

My plan is to buy a PCI-X dual nic as a backup and monitor the existing connection. If it fails again I'll switch it to the other network socket. A further time after that and I'll install the replacement PCI-X nic.

I was just hoping maybe someone has had this happen to them before with either the Dell PE 2800 or this Intel nic? This is the only server affected ruling out a problem with the switch, brand new CAT6 cables. It's not happened before and normally there's no problem at all - monitoring it this morning I've pinged it 4500 times with not a single loss.

Answer : Problem: On-board Intel PRO/1000 MT NIC keeps failing after 3-5 days

Perhaps just revert to the original drivers then?