Energee

Q: Network Card Issue

Hello,

 

I have a MacPro Mid 2010, 2x2.66 GHz 6 core, 32GB DDR3, nVidia GeForce GTX 760, PCIE SSD drive.

 

It appears that I have problem with the network card. At first, i noticed that  avid artist control (a control unit for music studios) were loosing connection randomly.

 

After months of trying to figure out why this was happening, Avid were certain that there was something wrong with my NIC card on my mac pro. It appears that they are right, because I tested and I also noticed that when i was connected to a VPN, the VPN connection was dropping randomly.

 

Im not sure if this is a hardware problem or not. I did format-reinstalled OS X from scratch. problem remains.

 

Any ideas... ?

 

Thanks

Alex

Posted on Dec 17, 2015 6:07 AM

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Q: Network Card Issue

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  • by John Lockwood,Helpful

    John Lockwood John Lockwood Jan 26, 2016 12:00 PM in response to Energee
    Level 6 (9,324 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jan 26, 2016 12:00 PM in response to Energee

    Having reinstalled OS X from scratch we can initially presume it is indeed a hardware issue. Things to try next are -

     

    • Try the other network socket on the Mac Pro (it has two)
    • Try a different network cable
    • Try a different network socket

     

    If non of the above help then it may be the chip rather than the socket or cable, in which case as the chip is soldered on to the logic board you would need to look at getting a different network adapter. This could be a USB one or a PCIe one. See the following for examples.

     

    http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MC704ZM/A/apple-usb-ethernet-adapter

    http://www.kanex.com/usb3lan

    http://www.sonnettech.com/product/prestogigpciepro.html

    http://www.sonnettech.com/product/prestogigpcieserver.html

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,Helpful

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jan 26, 2016 12:00 PM in response to Energee
    Level 9 (60,976 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 26, 2016 12:00 PM in response to Energee

    Network Utility (included with Mac OS X) can read out the error counters associated with a particular link to see if it is accumulating errors. There should not be more than an initial small burst, and growing numbers (even very slowly growing) indicate a problem:

     

    NetworkUtility Errors.png

     

    If you cannot find it, you may have to chase it down from:

     

    /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/Network Utility.app

     

    I find it helpful and use it often. It also tells you the actual speed of your Ethernet connections, rather than the configured speed. The other panes include a GUI-faced Ping and many others.

  • by Energee,

    Energee Energee Jan 26, 2016 11:40 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 26, 2016 11:40 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Hello guys,

     

    Thanks for the input.

     

    I have reinstalled OS,changed cables, even changed location of the machine to a different power source.

    I have confirmed that both of the gigabit (82574L) ethernet ports on my MacPro are problematic. Somehow the connection freezes or gets interrupted.

     

    I agree that my last solution would be to purchase a new NIC, but perhaps there's anything else to try?

     

    Is there any change that the PCIE SSD creates some kind of problem? Or maybe dust inside the machine?

    Any other ideas to try?

     

    Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 21.34.37.png

    You can see attached a screen while downloading a 1GB file, got 2 received errors.

    On the other port where I have the interface connected (avid artist control) there are zero errors.

     

    Thanks

    Alex

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jan 26, 2016 1:05 PM in response to Energee
    Level 9 (60,976 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 26, 2016 1:05 PM in response to Energee

    That link states it is running at 100Mbit/sec.

     

    To run at Gigabit speeds, all cables must have all eight wires in them (none may be used for power-over-Ethernet) and all devices must support Gigabit speeds.

  • by Energee,

    Energee Energee Jan 27, 2016 4:57 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 27, 2016 4:57 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Hello,

     

    Yes, but that's not the issue. The issue is the the connection gets interrupted-dropped.

     

    I left the ethernet controller running overnight, even with zero errors the connection was dropped.

     

    Any ideas are welcomed. Thanks.

     

    Screen Shot 2016-01-27 at 14.54.03.png