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Large packet loss at the guest OS level on the VMXNET3 vNIC in ESXi 5.x / 4.x (2039495)

Symptoms

When using the VMXNET3 driver on ESXi 4.x and 5.x, you see significant packet loss during periods of very high traffic bursts.

Cause

Packets are dropped due to high traffic bursts.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, slowly increase both values in the guest OS.

To reduce burst traffic drops in Windows 2008 R2 Buffer Settings:
  1. Click Start > Control Panel > Device Manager.
  2. Right-click vmxnet3 and click Properties.
  3. Click the Advanced tab.
  4. Click Small Rx Buffers and increase the value.
  5. Click Rx Ring #1 Size and increase the value.

Additional Information

This issue can affect any application that has a high number of connections with burst traffic patterns. By using Iperf, VMware has been able to replicate the packet drop behavior with a large number of consecutive clients.

Tags

Windows 2008 R2, Exchange 2010, Packet drops, Packet loss

See Also

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