Network Adapter Stops Allowing External Connections After Around 30 Hours

[link470]

Here's an odd issue for you guys. I've got a server here that has an internal connection to our network through one interface, and the second interface is connected to a real world IP address as it's hosting a website there and FTP service through IIS. I'm just using a software firewall to protect it.

 

Here's the deal. The system works great and hosts the website really well...for about 30 hours. Then you can't access it. I can access it if I'm inside the school. But if I disable the external network card on the server, I can't access it inside the school anymore, so I know my computer in my office isn't just cheating and connecting locally. So I've found a fix, but no idea why it fixes the problem. You'd think so far that it would have to be a switch up stream or a router or something if my computer inside could access the internet services on the server by going out our gateway, and back in through the external port on the server through an outside perimeter switch, but it turns out, that the fix is to disable the network adapter, and then re-enable it. Voila, everythings running again. I really don't want the fix to be a batch script that kills the network adapter and re-enables it every 30 hours, any ideas of what this could be? Brand new Dell PowerEdge 2900 running Server 2003. Everything else works great.

[Michael]

Try updating the drivers. Alternatively (if possible) install a decent network card. The Intel server cards/drivers are pretty good in my experience

[link470]

Still having issues with this unfortunately. Apparently there's a team of puzzled engineers working on the case ID at Dell as well [LOL that rhymes...ah hem]. All network drivers are up to date. The wierd thing was, immediately after updating the network drivers for the card, the card worked for 2 weeks instead of 24 hours. Now it's failing every 3 days or so after adjusting some settings on the card's advanced menu in device manager recommended by dell. So instead of getting one day I'm getting three. Yay. Still not where a server should be at. Again, I have staff here connecting to the server through that exact same network interface, same port, and that connection never goes down if they're connecting from inside the building and looping out our gateway and going back into the server through it's external port. Very confused.

[Michael]

Have you tried changing the ethernet cable and connecting to a different switch altogether (if possible).

 

I would also consider installing a PCI Express (preferably) gigabit network card; just to experiment whether you have the same problem or not. If the problem goes away, then Dell should replace the motherboard (I presume it is onboard).