Windows SBS 2008 Networking Issue

Try restarting the DNS server on the SBS box, does that solve the problem, if so change the DNS from using root hints to using forwarders and add in the IP addresses for your ISP's DNS servers.  Also check and make sure the power management on the NIC of the Server is disabled.

Hi tmooe1963. Thanks for your suggestions. We have tried all of those actually:

- Restarting DNS server service
- Disabling power management on NIC
- Using forwarders on DNS.

Hello,

A couple of things.

Run the Fix my network wizard from the SBS Console to see if it brings up any errors.

Also run the SBS BPA and see if it has any errors / warnings.

Have you restarted the network switch recently? - If not, do it.  Also, is it gigabit?

You could install wireshark onto a workstation and look for errors in the network traffic.

Open Task manager on the server and see if there are any process maxing out (Other than the high exchange and SQL).

Have you restarted the server recently?

Hi Scorpeo - We will restart the network switch and run the SBS BPA and report back. We've been restarting the server every time this happens - about every two days - that's what's been fixing the issue. We did run the 'Fix My Network' and that didn't report any errors.

Ok. The server was connected to a switch. We've bypassed that switch and gone directly into the core switch. We've also noticed that the server is at the Ctrl Alt Del screen, however it is frozen for keyboard action. We ran the BPA and got a few warnings. I can post the log here if you wish to see it.

No issues so far since bypassing the switch - going to wait one more day to be safe and update tomorrow. Thanks all.

Hello,

Sorry for the late relpy, I must have missed the email.

Yes please upload the BPA results anyway.

UPDATE: Moving off the switch didn't resolve the issue. It appears that every two days this is happening. Only way to get them back up and running is a cold reboot on the server. Everything is hung.

We did notice today that LMHOSTS was enabled on the primary NIC. Secondary NIC is disabled. We are going to try NIC updates.

I've attached the BPA Report that we ran on the server. Still at a loss for ideas.

We also found this alert in our monitoring software:

 Perf - Memory Pages Sec FAILED on Smith Group\SMITHGROUPSVR at Medicine Hat for Memory-Pages/sec- result 2235.649.
This monitor indicates the number of paging operations to disk during the measuring interval, and this is the primary counter to watch for indication of possible insufficient RAM to meet your server's needs. A good idea here is to configure a perfmon alert that triggers when the number of pages per second exceeds 50 per paging disk on your system.
SBSBPA.SBS-October-23rd-2013.201.xml

Any other information here folks? This is still happening everyday and we're at a loss as to what is causing it. Thanks

"Multiple IP addresses assigned to the internal network adapter"

Can you give us an ipconfig /all on the server please.

See attached.
IPSettings.JPG

A few more questions

Are your backups still running ok?  They are not running through the day or anything are they?

Any Anti-Virus installed on the server?

When the Server next crashes, see if you can conenct to it via Computer manager on another PC.  Check the services to see if any of the auto services have crashed.

RAID status all ok?

How much RAM do you have installed on the server? - Any changes to the RAM recently?

Whats the makle and model of the server?

Thanks Scorpeo:

1) Backups run at night. We've disabled those for now and removed the software.
2) No AV on the server. We did have ESET File Server installed, but we removed it.
3) We did see some errors in the 'Performance and Reliability Manager' that shows "OS Stopped Working" and some memory address references. We're going to run some hardware scans on the RAID and the RAM tonight after hours. It currently has 8 GB of RAM - 2 x 4GB Sticks.
4) It's a Dell PowerEdge T300

Thanks

Do you have the Dell Server Administrator software installed?  If so, check the logs.  It should show any errors relating to the RAM and RAID.

Hi Scorpeo - I'm not sure what you mean by the 'Dell Server Administrator' software. Can you prrovide a link? We have the DSET installed for creating service reports for warranty. Do you mean the Open Manage Software?

We also ran a hardware diag last night and it returned no errors. The only error it prompted on was a 'Watchdog OS Sensor', which looks like its related to the OS hanging. I'm starting to wonder if this is an OS issue and i need to do a reinstall.

Yes sorry the OpenManage Server Administrator.

Have you tried changing to the second NIC in the server?

We have tried that. I'll go ahead and install the OpenManage and see what i can see. We did find some minidumps and ran them through a bluescreen viewer. It showed the same memory addresses from before 0x0000ff4 and then also a note about ntoskrnl.exe

Let us know if OpenManager says any more.

It maube worth taking a copy of the dmp file and opening it with bluescreenview. It might help to identify if its a specific program/driver causing the issue.

UPDATE: We're wondering if there's a combination off issues happening here. We are seeing a degraded Array showing up on boot which i'm wondering if that may have caused some issues with Windows - corruption maybe. The other day the server rebooted and came back with a completely different static IP set. We did a Malware scan and it didn't show anything. Very odd. Wondering if the blue screens were hardware / RAID related, and now that has corrupted Windows.

We went ahead and replaced this server. It looked like a combination of hardware issues (RAID and possible Motherboard as well as HD's), combined with OS issues. We decided it was better to replace the box than replace all of the hardware and rebuild the server.

Glad you finally resolved the issue.  Did you go with an upgrade to SBS 2011 as well or just replace the hardware?

We went with Server 2012 and ditched SBS all together. THey were using Hosted Exchange so there's no need for SBS really for these guys.