I've got 4 Proliant DL380s running Windows Server 2003 that I upgraded
to Service Pack 2, since the upgrade they haven't responded to pings.
All services run fine and accepts connections fine,but they do not
respond to pings from any other hosts on the network. Pinging the
loopback from the server works, and I've ensured that there are no
firewalls or anything else that would be blocking ICMP between the
servers and the client machines.

It was brought to my attention after we deployed a new asset tracking
system that enumerates Windows systems via RPC/DCOM, but pings first
to see if the host is alive, and it was unable to enumerate these 4
servers. There are 6 identical servers in the same rack with them
that also have SP2 installed that have no issues.


I've also confirmed that there is nothing in the NIC hardware
configuration itself that could be causing this issue.


Any ideas, because I'm stumped?

Bump,

Anybody got any ideas?

Bumping again, 43 views, no replies? I know this is a weird issue, but I'm hoping somebody has an idea.

I didn't reply because I thought I had nothing useful to say, but since you seem to be willing to accept anything, let's try a longshot:

Some firewalls may reject network traffic that originates from Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1-based or Windows Vista-based computers

Other ideas:

- anything about RPC (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Rpc)
- anything about firewall
- anything about IPSEC

GL

Also, if you're using Broadcom (or rebranded Broadcom, like HP internal NICs for instance) NICs, consider disabling large send offload in the driver config as well. Broadcom drivers are known to work poorly with the Scalable Networking Pack (introduced in KB912222 and SP2 for 2K3). Broadcom isn't the only one, but they're the largest offender.

Next, make the following registry changes:



Lastly, install the hotfix in KB950224.

Once done, reboot, and see what happens.