Intel Dual NIC - only 1 works at a time

[philled]

I have installed an Intel PRO/1000 MT Dual NIC into an HP Elite 8200 box on which I'm running Citrix Xenserver 6. The HP box also has an onboard NIC which works fine.

I'm having problems with the dual NIC. If I plug a cable into one or the other (but not both at the same time) that NIC lights up and shows as connected in the XenServer console. But as soon as I plug a cable into both NICs neither of them lights up and XenServer seems to lose sight of both of them.

Why can't both work simultaneously? Do I need to run an Intel utility of some sort on them to configure/flash them in a certain way for a Linux box (XenServer is based on Red Hat)?

I have confirmed that it's not a cable issue. Also, I have tested the NICs under a Linux LIVE CD and I get the same problem, so I don't think it's caused by XenServer either.

 

[NetJunkie]

Sounds like a bad NIC.

 

[philled]

For the record, I solved this - but only be buying a new dual NIC card. I got an HP NC7170 card and installed that and it all worked fine.

 

[tangoseal]

You must have had a bad NIC. My dual port works fine.

 

[Electrofreak]

Strange; sounds like a controller problem. I've seen controllers go in dual-WICs, but that usually brings down the whole WIC, and sometimes we see a port go bad and just need to frog to another. Never seen something like this before with just one working at a time!