Bad NIC Strikes Again!

I have a pretty complex lab setup in order to be able to model different scenarios. The lab consists of 3 host computers each running Hyper-V. Each host have 3 - 5 NIC cards; management, VM Network, iSCSI, Live Migration, and Heartbeat NICs.

In order to allow the VM's to communicate with each other on their own each host is connected to a switch for the VM Network. Well, I have been fighting to setup my domain controllers for the last two days. 1 DC is on host A and the 2nd is on Host B. I was getting some weird timeout issues when trying to join the domain and dcpromo the 2nd DC on host B. I disabled firewalls, change policies, and even rebuild the VM's. Same issue.

So, I decided to run a few pings while I was doing a promo. From a VM on host B, I ran pings to VM's on Host A, Host B, and Host C. I saw request time outs to both VM's on Host A that I was pinging.

I switched my VMNet to a different NIC on Host A and the problems gone... Looks like I need to buy a new NIC. Now that I go back and look at the logs on Host A, I see errors in the logs


Log Name: System
Source: VMSMP
Date: 12/9/2010 12:19:57 PM
Event ID: 24
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: HOSTA
Description:
NIC '/DEVICE/{E7692807-E1EA-4792-8E72-184C01BDCF7E}' is no longer operational, status = 2.





Realtek NIC, you are being replaced ...

UPDATE: When I actually opened the box to look at the NIC, its a Netgear GA311... I have one of these installed in each box. No I wonder if just this one if bad, or if there maybe some issue with this card and Hyper-V Virtual Switches.