VM network connection problem

[chieulee]

I have a host with 2 vm (win2003), intermittently the network connection for vm will " hanged". i tried PING to vm get request timed out, i check the VM via VM infrastructure client, the VM is not hang, everything is working fine but the network connection. i check the status for network connection, it only able to received, but cant sent. what i do is disabled and enable the network connection, then it back to normal.

further detail

DELL PE2900 with VMware ESXi 3.5 update2, running 2 virtual machines guest OS win2003 R2 standard Edition SP2.

hope anyone can help. thanks

[s1xth]

Is the server a 2900 or 2950? Have you ever updated the NIC firmware/ BMC/ Bios/ etc on this machine? Could be the actual hardware on the server causing the issue. I would make sure the server has the latest firmware as this fixes a lot of issues espically with older hardware.

[chieulee]

it is PE2900, both vm network NOT get "hanged" at the same time, so i "guess" this will not be the hardware issue. i will try your suggestion to update the firmware see if solve the problem. thanks

[s1xth]

...Interesting. I would say make sure you have everything up-to-date on the hardware side of things to rule that out. Since the hardware is on the HCL list (pretty sure the 2900 is I know 2950's are, what I use) I would start there. I recommend that first because it fixes a lot of 'werid' problems. I am sure someone with a little more ESX knowledge could have you check some log files, but not sure there would be much since the vm's are staying online.

Here's a few more q's:

Do you loose management connectivity when the vm's are unreachable?

Can you still ping the physical server management address when the vm's 'hang'?

Any type of Antivirus software installed on the VM's?

Latest VMware Tools Installed?