I have EX470 with SiS 191. Every few days my LAN goes down and stays down. The blue lights on front are all happy and I see activity on my router for that port, but when I look in the router admin pages for "Attached Devices", the WHS is missing. Power cycle is only recovery option. Someone suggested that I disable power saving and sleep options on the LAN, but I did that a few months back and the problem persists. I've also tried a number of different routers, but have had no luck. First year of operation was OK.

So, before I get a USB-LAN, can anyone think of anything else? Driver updates for the SiS 191?

First is your Server connected directly to the server or a switch. If a switch try chaning the ports or better yet move the server closer to the router and just connect it there.

Since you have tried different routers and experience the same issues its either with the server or more downstream. If with the server can you recall any add-in you may have installed around the time when the issue occurred?

If you do want to go ahead and purchase the USB-LAN Adapter a head of time its easier to RDP to your server and install it then to do it blind. Doing this will give you some peace of mind because if you should need it, then it will be ready for use.

The only downside is that if your LAN port did fail you would have to perform a very different server recovery which I have written a Guide for but have yet to submit it for publication until someone other then myself actually tests it out and confirms it works. So in the event you have to rely on the adapter and one day do need to perform a recovery then it can be done but my guides are predicated around the Sabrent USB-LAN 10/100/1000 Adapter because this is what I have to work with here.

Let me know what you find out on your end and I will help you in anway I can.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Thanks for your advice. I installed the Sabrent 10/100/1000 as recommended. Purchased from TigerDirect.
Yes, I am hooked directly to my wireless router with a 6 foot cable.

It was not trouble free, because I stupidly plugged in the device before installing drivers. Device Manager showed the yellow caution sign - not running correctly.
In the end the correct solution for me was not the drivers that you supplied, but rather drivers that came on a mini-disc with the Sabrent. And I had to run install twice.
1. Unplug Sabrent.
2. Run install - this time it uninstalled.
3. Run install - this time it installed.
4. Plugin Sabrent - now OK.

Driver version is now 1.4.3.63, dated 10/2/2009.

But my problem of LAN going down happened again a few days later. Nothing to do but power cycle.
Now I've changed device settings:
1. Use fixed IP - it was getting address by DHCP.
2. Change device to not allow power management to put device to sleep.
3. Change device settings to Wake Up - Both.

BTW, the buitlin ethernet was also configured with fixed IP and power management off. When LAN goes offline, the blinky lights still appear OK, but my wireless router no longer shows my HP Home Server as an attached device.

Now I'll wait a few more days, but based on same behavior with both internal ethernet and Sabrent, I am suspecting something else is wrong.

It a long shot but do you have a computer thats wired to your router that you can check the servers connectivity with. As I understand it the computer your talking about is using a wireless connection to the router. I just wonder does this also happen with a computer that is directly connected to the router.

Without going back to read your previous posts did you also logon to the router to see if the server is listed in the DHCP listing when you see lost connectivity with the server?

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Yes, I have two computers wired direct to the DSL/Wireless Router. One is Windows 7 (homebrew) and it does not lose connectivity. The other is my HP Media Smart Server. When it goes down, I cannot ping it, and the router does not show it as an attached device - even though das' blinkin' lights behave as though connected. I am no longer using DHCP for either interface on the HP MSS, so DHCP shows nothing.

I have a third computer also running Windows 7 (Acer Aspire Revo) and it is wired thru a switch - it also never loses connectivity.

Wireless network connections really have nothing to do with this, it's just that I have a DSL/Wireless router with 4 ethernet ports on it.

I'm thinking I should brush off my network packet sniffer skills.

Can I ask you if your setting your server to sleep or hybernate? If so could you remove those settings to see if that makes a difference? I am not certain if your running the HP 1.x or 3.x software but I would review anything you might be running on the Console for Sleep or Hybernation and also RDP to your server and check the Power Setting to see if for some reason during certain conditions if they might be set to put the server to sleep or hybernation.

I only mention this because you have 2 LAN ports now and both act the same yet other connected devices on your network appear to have good connectivity. So it occured to me that if your server is going to sleep or hybernating that it may not be waking up properly.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Let me guess, lan goes down the server with a processor update?
I had a processor upgrade server in lan and it killed all the time.

_________________
EX470 - upgraded Athlon 64 LE-1660, 2GB memory, 3 TB
EX490 - upgraded intel Core 2 Extreme Processor QX9650, 4Gt Kingston, 5 TB
DIY CoolerMaster Stacker - ASUS MS-7125, Processor AMD 3500+, 2GB Memory, 450GB - Dedicated to downloads

Power settings for server are to never sleep, never hibernate.
I've made sure to set the same for the two ethernet adapters.
Are there any chips on the motherboard that are used for ethernet tasks, regardless of whether I use internal ethernet or external, such as Sabrent?

Interesting comment about upgraded CPU. Yes, I did update the CPU and now have - oh well, it can't tell me, but it says it is 2.6 GHz, I recall the number being very similar to what is mentioned about. I also replaced RAM with 2G at same time. These updates were done a long time ago, but this ethernet going down problem has also been happening for a long time. Maybe I will try putting the old CPU back.

The new knowledge of the case of a processor upgrade, it will cause the server network card, power surges, which switch etc. detects a defect and protects itself by closing the network, the server itself does not see anything wrong with it.

My home network crashed constantly, and it ended immediately when I changed the original processor for ex470.

_________________
EX470 - upgraded Athlon 64 LE-1660, 2GB memory, 3 TB
EX490 - upgraded intel Core 2 Extreme Processor QX9650, 4Gt Kingston, 5 TB
DIY CoolerMaster Stacker - ASUS MS-7125, Processor AMD 3500+, 2GB Memory, 450GB - Dedicated to downloads

It really depends on the processor thats being used. There have been many processors written about that have been tried on the EX470 some with success others not. The LE1640 for example has I believe 3 versions one thats known to work and the others were hit or miss.

Best way to rule out the processor is to identify the processor easier if you still have the box because it would of come with a heatsink and fan unless the processor was purchased as standalone or used.

The other way is to simply remove the processor and install the stock processor as suggested to see if the conditions change.

I did in the past try an LE1640 and it did not go well but it showed its ugly face within a week or two. I can look up the LE1640 information I have but its burried someone but if you search the forums I have written about the LE1640 as have others but not all of them are bad and one is known to work well but I do recall there are 3 versions of that processor that AMD manufactured.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

VICTORY! That is to say that victory is highly probable. My ethernet connection has not gone down in more than 1357481 seconds (that is approx 15.7 days). When the LAN down problem was happening, I would notexpectmore than 7 days, and often it would go down within 4 days.

My solution was to revert to the old CPU - had installed some version of LE 1640. I tried so many things - never would have guessed the CPU was to blame.

Its good to see you were able to resolve your issues. There are a few processors that are known to work well with the EX47x but also require you to modify the BIOS. If this is of interest to you let me know and I will be more then happy to point you to the message thread for modifying the BIOS and in that same thread there are listings of processors that work well with the EX47x but some are hard to find or if you do find them they are not cheap. The easiest to find is the BE2300 (ADH2300DOBOX).

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8