limok Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Hi Guys, My Dell PowerEdge T300 has dual gigabit NICs and only one of them seems to run at the full gigabit speeds. I've done all the checks I can think of, that is check the cable, check settings in device manager, check different port on switch and still only manage to get 100Mbps connection speed. I've tried manually setting the speed to 1000Mbps in device manager but the network connection says disconnected. I'm currently on Server 2012 using built in drivers but Server 2003 and Windows Home Server 2011 also give me the same problem. Please advise! The NICs are from Broadcom. Cheers guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n_K Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Get the broadcom software, I can't remember what it's called but it can do advanced things like tell you the length of the wires in the cable (which is how I knew my dell poweredge ethernet port was blown because all but one were zero, and the other was set at 6 metres permanently even if no cable was attached) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c.grz Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Did you swap cables? Put the cable from the working NIC on the problematic NIC and vice versa? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybertimber2008 Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 You've swapped the cable and no change? I'd try a different port on the switch in addition to a cable change. If it's still showing 100mbit, I wonder if one of the pins on the NIC is bad, or if a solder joint is bad. Gigabit needs all 8 wires, whereas 100mbit needs only 4... so a single bad wire/pin in the right place and you'll see 100mbit instead of 1000mbit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted October 16, 2012 MVC Share Posted October 16, 2012 yeah I would move the cable from the port that is giving you gig to the other interface - if still no gig then you know its something wrong with the interface. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limok Posted October 18, 2012 Author Share Posted October 18, 2012 Sorry guys for not replying back any earlier, it seems Neowin notifications aren't working or something. I've tried all above recommendations apart from the broadcom as the option to run the tests are greyed out. Interesting - If disable the NIC that's running at 100Mbps from the BIOS then NIC 2 sets itself at 100Mbps? Just to let you know I've got a raid card and dell drac card (set to dedicated nic) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted October 18, 2012 MVC Share Posted October 18, 2012 So looks like there is a recent firmware update for broadcom on the dell site http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriverDetails/Product/poweredge-t300?driverId=THCKX&osCode=WNET&fileId=3077194364 Fixes & Enhancements - Support for Windows Server 2012. - Bugfixes And vs using the built in driver I would install the driver from the dell site. http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriverDetails/Product/poweredge-t300?driverId=J0X6P&osCode=WNET&fileId=2731103015 And or drivers from broadcom. You clearly should be able to run the tests using the diagnostics, etc... if not something is not right. That firmware update is pretty recent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aergan Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 It's not something like "Green Ethernet" Energy star driver ******** that's setting the speed to 100TX because of load utilisation or the like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limok Posted October 18, 2012 Author Share Posted October 18, 2012 So looks like there is a recent firmware update for broadcom on the dell site http://www.dell.com/...leId=3077194364 Fixes & Enhancements - Support for Windows Server 2012. - Bugfixes And vs using the built in driver I would install the driver from the dell site. http://www.dell.com/...leId=2731103015 And or drivers from broadcom. You clearly should be able to run the tests using the diagnostics, etc... if not something is not right. That firmware update is pretty recent. I've got the Broadcom drivers installed and ran the cable diagnostic check - Got an error from the application saying failed to suspend the driver. Ran the firmware update, that too failed. I think I'm going to install a supported OS and run all tests and firmware upgrades. Cheers guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limok Posted October 20, 2012 Author Share Posted October 20, 2012 Right, I've finally done a firmware update after installing Server 2008/2008 R2/Using Dell SUU/Dell Systems Management Tool which all failed until I thought about disabling 1 NIC and doing the firware updates. So I disabled the NIC that was running at 1Gb and performed the firmware update which worked perfectly with the Management Tool, I booted right into Windows and hey ho the NIC that was previously running at 100Mbps is now running at the full Gb speed. I restarted and enbaled the other NIC and to my surprise/disappointment this NIC was now running at 100Mbs. I've upgrading the firmware on both NICs to the latest and still experiencing the same problem. Argh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted October 20, 2012 MVC Share Posted October 20, 2012 But now you can run diagnostics? Are you running in team mode or something with failover? Can you post a screenshot of the broadcom suite showing the configuration? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardK Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Have you tried using differing patch cables? Is the server connected directly to the switch? (no other cabling/ports between the switch and the server?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limok Posted October 21, 2012 Author Share Posted October 21, 2012 OK ran the Broadcom tests with the new firmware and latest Dell drivers and turns out one of the NICs had bad pins. So I checked it out and whilst not obvious at first pin 8 looked a little out of place, so I moved it into a more perpendicular position with the rest of the pins and voila sorted. Thanks guys for your help, much appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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