Something like that. This whole thing sounds exactly like interrupt storm or IRQ conflict. He wouldn't have to be messing with the settings to cause it, a change in network devices or traffic patterns might be enough to push it over the edge. Or the OS automatically reassigning IRQs.
Of course there's still the option the NIC is faulty, but he's unwilling to test that theory, so we're kinda stuck.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinky
Eh? What is interrupt moderation mean please?  |
Every time a piece of hardware (e.g. your network card) has information it needs the computer to process it sends an interrupt to the CPU, which "interrupts" the CPU from whatever it's doing to handle the data. Too many interrupts would stop the processor being free to do other stuff, resulting in your mouse being jerky or freezing, because it's constantly being interrupted by the network card.
Interrupt moderation is a setting that bundles up lots of interrupts into one, so instead of 100 individual interrupts, all 100 bits of data are combined into one interrupt.