I've got a remote server that seems to have become fond of changing its NIC adapter numbers. The system will be running fine, possibly even make it through a reboot without a problem. Then for some reason we'll do a reboot and the NIC adapter number increments and all of the IP settings are lost. We're trying to manage these systems remotely, so losing network connectivity is, to say the least, inconvenient. Does anyone have an idea of what would cause this to happen? It doesn't happen on every reboot. Server 2008 Std. Thanks Pat

Hi Pat, Thanks for posting here. >Then for some reason we'll do a reboot and the NIC adapter number increments and all of the IP settings are lost. Do you mean system was always recognize this device as a new one and reinstall drivers for it after rebooting ? we actually have a similar issue but on Windows Server 2008 R2 : Ghost NIC seen on Windows 7/Windows 2008 R2 machines built from VMWare Templates when the Template uses a Synthetic NIC (VMXNET3) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2526142 So would you please first check and remove any ghost NIC on this server with following the steps in the blog post below: How to Find a Lost, Missing, Hidden or Removed Network Card (NIC) or Other Device and Even Remove it http://blogs.technet.com/b/danstolts/archive/2010/09/25/how-to-find-a-lost-missing-hidden-or-removed-network-card-nic-or-other-device-and-even-remove-it.aspx Thanks. Tiger LiTiger Li TechNet Community Support

This symptoms are very similar. In my case, this is not a virtual machine. Also, the new NIC isn't born on every reboot--just some of them. We don't have good proof on this next point, so it's just a theory: unexpected reboots (crashes) are more likely to have this problem. I will review the attached articles and see if there is anything that will help me with our problem. Pat

Hi Pat, Thanks for posting here. Do we have any unusual event was been recorded after rebooting and getting this issue up? If so ,please post here . please feel free to let us know if get any update on this issue. Thanks. Tiger LiTiger Li TechNet Community Support

Hi Tiger, Sorry for the delayed response. We're seeing no unusual event log messages surrounding this problem. On some boots of the system (not all boots), it detects the NIC as a new device (and the old devices are reported as missing). The new devices don't have any IP information, so we lose contact with the system over the network. If I tell the device manager to show me hidden devices, I can see the old incarnations of the NICs there. We're still trying to find a reliable way to cause this behavior, but we haven't nailed it down yet.

Is there a way to turn on some kind of verbose logging during the device detection portion of the boot? We don't have a reliable way to reproduce this problem. However, it seems if we reboot the system for enough times it's going to happen. I'd like to know what's going on in his little mind when he decides that the on-board NICs aren't the same ones that have always been there...