W2003 Server SP-1 network card APIPA though no cable connected!

Hi everyone,

is this normal behaviour:

I have a server with 2 network cards. One is connected to a switch,
configured manually 8192.168.33.2), and working well. The other one is
on DHCP settings (system defaults, never changed anything), and there
is no cable plugged in. This is correctly indicated in the GUI:
network cable unplugged, red cross.

In ipconfig /all, however, the card shows up, and has an APIPA address
(169.254.xxx.xxx). this wouldn't bother me much, but a network trace
has shown that the server for some reason uses this address when
establishing a connection to a remote client, and this attempt does
fail, of course, because the client has no route to 169.254.0.0

Disabling the interface helps.

As far as I remember unpluged NICs never should get active in IP. This
odd behaviour seems new to me, my XP clients behave differently, and
as far as I remember my servers do as well (though I cannot unplug any
NICs right now to test).

Any comments welcome.

Armin.

Hi Nimral,

You are right, an unplugged nic should just show "media disconnected" and
not even allow a failed renew (which would give an APIPA address) to a dhcp
server. Perhaps your card is faulty? If you dont need it at all i would
both disable it and remove any bindings on it. If you do need it I would
try replacing it with another card or upgrading the drivers.

Coraleigh Miller

"Nimral" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi everyone,
>
> is this normal behaviour:
>
> I have a server with 2 network cards. One is connected to a switch,
> configured manually 8192.168.33.2), and working well. The other one is
> on DHCP settings (system defaults, never changed anything), and there
> is no cable plugged in. This is correctly indicated in the GUI:
> network cable unplugged, red cross.
>
> In ipconfig /all, however, the card shows up, and has an APIPA address
> (169.254.xxx.xxx). this wouldn't bother me much, but a network trace
> has shown that the server for some reason uses this address when
> establishing a connection to a remote client, and this attempt does
> fail, of course, because the client has no route to 169.254.0.0
>
> Disabling the interface helps.
>
> As far as I remember unpluged NICs never should get active in IP. This
> odd behaviour seems new to me, my XP clients behave differently, and
> as far as I remember my servers do as well (though I cannot unplug any
> NICs right now to test).
>
> Any comments welcome.
>
> Armin.