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Tough one! 2 servers on a gigbit network keep losing their network connections.

mcveigh

mcveigh

Diamond Member
I just got a call from a friend who is tearing his hair out on this one. here's the situation.

2 servers w/ video capture cards are streaming video from security cameras to about 8 people's desktops.

every 3-7 days one or both of the servers will lose their network connections to the point where they can't even ping them.
if they reboot everything is fine for a few days again. all OS's on the network are XP pro.

I don't know what NICs, switch or anything else 🙁 but I am assured they are top quality. I guessing intel nics (most of the computers are Dell's I think) and 3com or cisco switchs. Sorry I know that's not much to go on.

I haven't messed with gigabit yet, I was wondering if streaming video for a few days like that would really stress a card out possibly causing it to lock up? anyone have any other ideas.
 
Well, I for one would start by looking at the network configuration of the machines when these outages occur. Have they simply lost their network configuration? Are they on DHCP? Would a simple ipconfig /renew fix the problem?
There are a lot of questions, but I'd start with checking the first connectivity point you notice the problem on (the Network connections in this case) and check EVERYTHING, down to the cabling. Also, get your friend to look up the card manufacturer's site for the latest drivers and such, it could be a driver issue. And be sure to have him google terms like 'connectivity problems <card name here>' and so forth to try and determine if it's a known problem.

I don't believe that constant high-bandwidth streaming will stress the network cards, since we have a couple gigabit NICs in a machine here (central firewall) that basically just ensures 1gb bandwidth between two sets of 8 10/100 connections that are constantly in use. Bandwidth wise they're about 50% used on a constant basis (theoretically that's ~500mbps). Any idea what kind of capture cards/streaming software they're using?
 
How much memory is in each of these machines? How memory bandwidth intensive is the streaming? Is it a video driver issue (I know, we've never seen any of those, right😉?)?

Just some food for thought🙂.
 
well the guy who called me does high-end audio/visual stuff and has the right equipment to certify the lines he puts in, He said that he checked all the cables in the building. If I have the time I might try to go out there myself. as I said earlier I really don't know what they have out there. my gut feeling is it's a software issue, most likely this video software but I'm not sure.
 
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