Vista - Hyper-V Server Core, Primary Management NIC very slow network tran

I have a Dell PowerEdge 2900 2 x 2.5Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM, and 2 x Broadcom
NIC's (pre-installed). Hyper-V Server Core 2008 x64 is running on the Host
and I updated the Broadcom drivers manually on the server core to latest from
Dell.

NIC 1 - 192.168.0.40 - (Broadcom BCM5708C NetXtreme II GigE NDIS VBD Client)
Dedicated to Management (No Virtual Network)
NIC 2 - 192.168.0.41 (BCM5708#2-LAN-02) Dedicated to Virtual Machines

From any Windows 2003 Server (Hardware, not virtual), file transfers from
192.168.0.41\c$ are very fast while file transfers from 192.168.0.40\c$ are
very slow. Fast = 350Mb < 2 minutes, Slow 350Mb > 100 minutes.

All Management features work perfectly on either interface, and data
transfers from Windows Vista x32 SP1 are very fast on both of the Hyper-V
Server NIC interfaces. Problem seems to be related to data transfers from a
Windows 2003 R2 SP2 machine.

Originally I was using primary NIC as host for VM's, but network transfer
speed of VM was also extremly slow until I changed the connection from NIC 1
to NIC 2.

NIC 1 is configured with DNS and Default Gateways. NIC 2 is NOT configured
with DNS or Default Gateways.

Any ideas would be most appreciated.

Thank you

Turn off the advanced features on the physical NIC. What you're seeing is
Windows 2k3 not playing nice with jumbo frames and top hat and such.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Jeromy G." <Jeromy G.@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:2EDA4EA2-2C5F-474B-9E38-3AA16968651F@xxxxxx

Thanks Charlie,

Could you please clarify? When you say turn off advanced features on the
physical NIC are you talking about the Hyper-V Server Core NIC? or the
Windows 2003 NIC? If you are talking about Hyper-V Server Core do you ahve a
link explaining how to do this from the command line as I don't have a GUI to
easily complete this task. It is strange it happens with 1 NIC and not the
other when they are basically the same.

Another note, I noticed when transferring files from different operating
systems revealed different results
Transfer 350 Mb File

Windows 2003 R2 SP2 --> Hyper-V Server 2008 core NIC 1 = 100 Minutes
Windows 2003 R2 SP2 --> Hyper-V Server 2008 core NIC 2 = 2 Minutes
Vista SP1 - Hyper-V Server 2008 core NIC 1 - 1.5 minutes
Vista SP1 - Hyper-V Server 2008 core NIC 2 - 50 seconds
XP Pro SP3 - Hyper-V Server 2008 core NIC 1 = 11 minutes
XP Pro SP3 - Hyper-V Server 2008 core NIC 2 = 50 seconds

Thank you,

Jeromy

If your network card has RSS (Receive Side Scaling) enabled, you'll need to
disable that feature by making the following changes.

1. Open regedit
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

3. On the Edit menu, point to New, click DWORD Value, and then type
EnableRSS .
4. Double-click EnableRSS, type 0 , and then click OK.
5. Do the same for EnableTCPA and EnableTCPChimney
6. Set DisableTaskOffload to 1.

Close Regedit and reboot.

This is only required because of the mix of 2k3 and Vista/2k8. (and yes
--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Jeromy G." <JeromyG@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:F8974F46-AE1F-4E54-A7A7-14A0067BD004@xxxxxx

Thanks for the update Charlie,

Again, I'm not quite clear wheather the registry changes should be made on
the Windows 2008 Server or the Windows 2003/xp systems. It would be difficult
to make this change on ALL XP/2K3 systems, but if that is the only solution...

I ran these commands on the Hyper-V 2008 Server Core:
netsh int ip set global taskoffload=disabled
netsh int tcp set global RSS=disabled
netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh int tcp set global chimney=disabled

Results:
netsh int tcp show global

TCP Global Parameters
----------------------------------------------
Receive-Side Scaling State : disabled
Chimney Offload State : disabled
Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level : disabled
Add-On Congestion Control Provider : ctcp
ECN Capability : disabled
RFC 1323 Timestamps : disabled

Also verified Registry Changes (remote registry management)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
"EnableTCPA"=dword:00000000
"EnableRSS"=dword:00000000
"DisableTaskOffload"=dword:00000001

Restarted Hyper-V 2008 Server Core and still have same problem with transfer
files from Hyper-V Server to W2K3 and XP clients but not vista. Again,
Hyper-V Server has 2 NIC's; 192.168.0.40 NIC1 Slow speed, 192.168.0.41 NIC2
Fast speed.

Were these changes supposed to be made on the Hyper-V Server or made on the
W2K3/XP Systems?

NOTE: One of the XP Systems is a virtual machine on Virtual PC 2007 and the
same problems show up there.

Thank you,
Jeromy

You've made the changes on the physical server, so try it on one of the
connecting 2k3 machines. If that improves things, then you're going to have
to do it everywhere. If it doesn't, then don't bother. I don't _know_ that
this is your problem. But I do know that it _can_ be in some circumstances.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Jeromy G." <Jeromy G.@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3EAB6169-63D3-4A69-BE3E-D53B8B4F07B4@xxxxxx

Charlie,

I modified the registry of a W2K3 Server and it didn't fix the problem. I
decided to double check my managed switch and the port the server was plugged
into was configured for 100 FD, I changed it to "Auto" and it resolved the
problem.

Goes to show me 1. check physical connection, 2. check switch configuration,
3. check NIC configuration...

Thank you so much for your assistance

I will reconfigure my servers back to their default settings to determine if
the transfer speed is resolved with the switch reconfiguration only. I will
post again if setting my configurations back cause problems with performance.

Thank you,
Jeromy G.

Yup. Always check the obvious!

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Jeromy G." <Jeromy G.@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:FEE75FE4-A13F-40CC-A442-594893ABE943@xxxxxx