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OrionManufactur
Contributor
Contributor

how to troubleshoot: all physical network interfaces stop responding

Running ESXi 6.0.0 2494585 on a Dell PowerEdge R610.

The problem I have with this machine is that, every so often, about once a month, but sometimes more frequently like once a week, I will lose all network communication with this machine.

The 4 built-in NICs will stop repsonding, and I have to reboot the machine to get everything running again.

It is not a hard lock, because I can still access ESXi from the console, and it reports that all the NICs are working fine (ha).

I have another R610 with identical hardware configuration and same version of ESXi, and this problem almost never happens (I say "almost" because maybe I did have a similar problem once in a year?).

Thinking it was maybe a hardware issue, I replaced the motherboard (which includes the onboard NICs) on the problematic R610, but the problem continued.

I have no idea how I would start to go about troubleshooting this problem.  Any ideas?

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parmarr
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

When the issue happens, try gathering the ESXi host logs. For more information, see Collecting diagnostic information for VMware ESX/ESXi (653). https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/653. Also ensure that the latest firmware are installed on the server as per Dell's recommendation. When the four nics stops responding, are you not able to communicate with the host?

Sincerely, Rahul Parmar VMware Support Moderator
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