Bridged Connection on Windows Server 2008R2 Host

[jarichard]

When using network adapters in bridged mode the connection is unstable and unreliable, an average of 20%-25% packet loss.  If configured as NAT the connection is stable with 0 packet loss.  The server has 4 NICs and I am connecting to several networks, so I must use bridged networking.  The bridged networks in the Virtual Network Configurator are not set to auto and each one is assigned to a specific adapter from the host.  On the guest side I have two adapters configured as custom, one is set to vmnet0, one to vmnet2, both of which correspond to the bridged networks configured in the Virtual Network Configurator.  I am confident the settings/configurations for the Virtual Network Configuration and Virtual Machine Network Adapters are correct as I obtain IP Addresses from the DHCP server, and ping our gateway and connect to the internet (eventually).  The problem is that the connection is unstable and unreliable with huge packet loss.  Changing an adapter to NAT (and disabling the other adapter) provides solid results.

I have read the numerous threads regarding disabling the Large Send Offloading, and have employed those measures on the host (Server 2008) side. I have also ensured no firewalls are enabled on the host or guest OS side.  I have also taken this same Virtual Machine and ran it on a Windows 7 Pro 64Bit host with multiple NICs.  Bridged mode ran perfect with no packet loss in this scenario.  The only difference here was running the Virtual Machine on Windows 7 Pro versus Windows Server 2008R2.  This leads me to conclude the issue is with some network/NIC setting on the host side.  However, it doesn't seem to be the Large Send Offloading as it's already been addressed.

Any other ideas, suggestions, things to check?  Has anyone addressed the Large Send Offloading and still encountered the bridged networking issues?

Dell T420 Server

VMware Workstation 10.0.1

Host: Windows Server 2008R2 64Bit

Guest: Windows 7 Pro 32Bit

Thanks

Jeremy

[rainey]

You could check what the NIC in the VM is set as. Look in the VMX file and see if the Ethernet device is set as a e1000e and if it is change all to e1000 and try that. there has been some issues with the e1000e setting. There is a new NIC in VMtools you could try also but i don't know the correct name, it is like vmnet33 or something.

[jarichard]

Thanks.  From the beginning I had the e1000 as the Ethernet device set in the VMX file.  I did also try the vmxnet3 device, with the same results as posted.