I've not noticed this behavior in our E5500 but frequent disconnecting/reconnecting isn't something that it typical in my environment (docking station, so the whole system is wacky for a bit after dock/undock). If Dell reports anything I would be very interested in knowing and I'll be sure to test this out on a machine tomorrow. I'm uncertain of the exact model NIC.
-----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:mailvor...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 7:56 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Network link state slow to propagate; UI freezes Hey all, PROBLEM SUMMARY When plugging in or unplugging the network cable, the link state change does not propagate to the whole system immediately. Network-related UI elements may freeze until the system "notices" the change. The "network cable is unplugged" and/or "now connected" balloons do not appear until the system notices the change. ENVIRONMENT Dell Latitude E6500 Win XP Pro, SP2 or SP3 Intel 82567LM gigabit Ethernet NIC (E1Y5132.SYS) SYMPTOMS Intermittent, but fairly consistent and reproducible. Doesn't happen all the time, but happens more often than not, and frequently several times in a row. When you unplug the cable, the system tray icon shows the network as connected for several seconds. Conversely, when plugging in a network cable, the tray icon will show disconnected for several seconds. While this is happening, the tray icon will "freeze" -- the send/receive indications "get stuck", and if you click on it (to open the network status window), nothing immediately happens. If the status window was open and you unplug, the counters stop, the send/receive indicators freeze as they were, and the whole thing sits there, non-responsive. Once Windows notices the change in link state, all the UI events that have queued since it froze fire at once, opening windows or popping up menus. If you unplug/re-plug multiple times while it is frozen, you'll see the "... is now connected" and "Network cable unplugged" balloons flicker back and forth. Sometimes the UI will freeze for several even *after* it reports the link state change. Then all the mouse clicks fire at once. Occasionally, this will cause the system to keep using a DHCP lease it got for one network, despite having been plugged into a different network. On rare occasions (much less than the more general problem), the system *never* notices the cable is (un)plugged. You have to reboot to get it unstuck. INVESTIGATION If I run a "ping -t" at the same time, I can see ping showing instantaneous response. As soon as I unplug, it starts giving "Hardware error". After a few moments, that changes to "Destination host unreachable". The GUI may still be reporting the link as connected. When I plug back in, ping will start reporting replies again within a few seconds. It may take the GUI several more seconds before it notices the link is back. This is our first (and so far only) E series Latitude. We loaded with the same RIS image we've been using for all our other computers for years, with the addition of drivers new or updated for this model computer. It doesn't happen on any of our other computers. Things I've tried that didn't help: * Endless reboots * Shutdown, power off, battery out, unplug cord, press power button to discharge * Update to latest NIC driver from Dell (driver file ver 9.50.14.2, dated 4/4/2008) * Update to latest NIC driver from Intel (ProSet 14.3; driver file ver 9.52.25.0, dated 3/26/2009) * Confirmed we have the latest BIOS (A13) * Disabling all non-Microsoft-Windows services and startup items * Docking and undocking * Installing Win XP Service Pack 3 (started at SP2) * Installing "Dell Notebook System Software", which is a collection of Microsoft hotfixes * Different network cables * Unplugging at the laptop and at the switch * Disabling the switch port while leaving the cables plugged in * Different switch port * Different model switch (100 megabit only) * Digging out an old 10 megabit repeater and plugging into that * Running on just battery (no line-in) * Running on just line-in (no battery) * Confirmed we have the latest video driver (from Intel) and sound driver (from Dell) No change in problem behavior across any of that. Trouble persists. Tried disabling Windows Firewall and ALG. That caused ping to report "Request timed out" instead of "Hardware error" (before moving on to "host unreachable"), but otherwise, same behavior. I'll be calling Dell, but I wanted to see if anyone here had seen this before and/or had any ideas. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
