Network Issues (not in any way related to NFO servers)

[MasterGohan]

To start, I'll say that this is in no way, shape, or form, an issue directly with NFO servers. Although it would obviously effect me in using my server.


I've a rather complicated issue, and I'm seriously out of ideas. I'm hoping that others here may have some pointers or additional things to try before I just break down and give up a PCI-E slot on my motherboard.

Problem: As far as I can tell TCP packets are arriving out-of-order at the "application" level.

For example, I'll transfer several GB of data via a protocol that does not do integrity checking and relies on TCP doing so (such as FTP) ... several files will have flipped regions of data (as shown by diff tool / winmerge). By that I mean sections 1400-1500 bytes in length. It looks like it's generally 1500 minus the size of the TCP header, or 1422 bytes occasionally.

I've additionally seen many large HTTP downloads arrive "corrupted", installers fail self integrity check, etc. Ain't the internet connection as no other systems on the network experience this.

-If I'm in any TCP game, I'll obviously disconnect probably for the above problem that I saw in FTP transfers (Filezilla server + client). UDP games are uneffected by this obviously.



Ok, so that said here's the system with these problems:

Motherboard: ASUS P8C WS (brand new, latest bios flashed)
Processor: Xeon E3 1270v2
RAM: 32GB DDR3 1600 ECC
OS: Windows 8 Professional

The machine has passed over 30 hours of Prime95 and IBT without errors. It's also passed a full day of memtest86. It does not appear that the network errors are simply machine instability.


-There's two onboard NICs, both of which are Intel 82574L's. The problem happens with either NIC.

I have also tried:
-Updating NIC drivers.
-Downgrading NIC drivers.
-Using the OS 'stock' provided NIC drivers.
-Disabling Task Offloading does not help, either by registry or by NIC driver options.
-Shutting off interrupt moderation, and all other advanced NIC features that might play with interrupt ordering.
-The problem happens at "ANY" link-speed.
-Replacing the network cable and switch.
-Removing the switch completely did not help (machine to machine directly).

... and finally.
-The problem does "NOT" happen with an el-cheapo Realtek PCI-E NIC.

Would prefer to not use up a PCI-E slot as that will mean that I have to give up my Xonar STX in order to fit a second videocard later.


Thanks in advance for any ideas, because I'm sure stumped here..

[soja]

This seems to have solved lockup issues on your NIC, I don't know if it'll help but it's worth a try

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchR ... op+Adapter

I was unable to find anything on your specific problem

[soja]

As an alternative, if you do *need* to use an external NIC, heres a usb 3.0 one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833114074

It probably has slightly less performance than a PCI or onboard NIC, but someone said the throughput was up to gigabit speeds.
I cannot vouch for this NIC, it was a simple newegg search

[Edge100x]

Intel adapters are normally rock-solid. What is the date on your driver? Is RSS enabled?

[MasterGohan]

Intel adapters are normally rock-solid. What is the date on your driver? Is RSS enabled?

Tried both enabled and disabled for RSS. I'd also turned on timestamps at first thinking that maybe a poorly handled packet-ID / rollover could result in incorrect ordering. But, can't be that due to frequency (this happens within 5 minutes at gigabit saturation every time).

Here's the current tcp settings.
================================================

Code: Select all

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.2.9200]
(c) 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>netsh int tcp show global
Querying active state...

TCP Global Parameters
----------------------------------------------
Receive-Side Scaling State          : disabled
Chimney Offload State               : disabled
NetDMA State                        : disabled
Direct Cache Access (DCA)           : disabled
Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level    : normal
Add-On Congestion Control Provider  : none
ECN Capability                      : disabled
RFC 1323 Timestamps                 : enabled
Initial RTO                         : 3000
Receive Segment Coalescing State    : disabled

I'm using the latest driver from Intel's site.
Version: 17.4
Date: 10/17/2012

[MasterGohan]

As an alternative, if you do *need* to use an external NIC, heres a usb 3.0 one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833114074

It probably has slightly less performance than a PCI or onboard NIC, but someone said the throughput was up to gigabit speeds.
I cannot vouch for this NIC, it was a simple newegg search

That's awesome, I didn't even know that USB3 NICs existed.

May come down to that provided that the NIC can yield reasonable latency with its polling rate.

[MasterGohan]

I am now able to add.. either unfortunately or fortunately (depending how you look at it) ... that my NIC problem is Windows 8 centric.

--Windows 7 has no problems with all NIC offloading enabled on the onboard NIC. No disconnections, no file transfer corruption. [Even with the OS provided NIC drivers, though the latest work too]


May just stay Windows 7 for now and hope that I get to use my copy of Windows 8 in the future (if these issues get ironed out). Bit of a shame for a "Windows 8 Ready" motherboard to not-work-with Windows 8.


Should anyone have other suggestions, I've got the Windows 8 installation side by side to test in. Cheers!

[Edge100x]

If you haven't already, I definitely recommend reporting this bug to Intel. They may be able to give you an ETA on a fix, or a beta build with it.