Ok, I think I've solved this one. Turned out to be hardware related. My mobo is going on six years old and seems to be slowly dying. The symptoms are: About three months ago my network connection died. I saw right away my switch had gone off line and unplugging one of the desktop NIC's allowed it to come back on. So I figured it had died so I'd just use the one remaining. This time, I was on the network fine for awhile, then it would lag tremendously or drop off. Odd thing was the browser would still work, but Dolphin and Amarok would not. I assumed it was either a mounted filesystem corruption (btrfs) or one of my NFS mounts. I worry about the btrfs because it's still experimental so I checked it first. Then I disconnected the NFS shares and the problem went away. I reviewed my mounts and was still working on the solution when I noticed my laptop was going on-and-off line while hard-wired. I went to my switch and it was flashing on and off. I removed my last desktop NIC from the switch and all went back to normal.
I thought I was stuck with no network until I replaced my desktop, when I had an idea: What if the router could handle whatever the was causing the switch to barf? I figured the router being "smart" and the switch not might make a difference. Luckily, the router and the switch are near enough that no major surgery was required to test this idea. I needed only clip a couple of zip ties and plug in.
Shazam! Both NIC's went into full function mode and the network stayed up. I needed only reset my MTU to normal (switch supports Jumbo Frames, router does not). So I re-configured my port aggregation and am once again re-connected to my server and the 'net. I still think the old mobo is on it's way out, but I'd like to get at least another six months out of her. When I do upgrade, it will be a full architecture change so it'll be pricey.
Thanks, everyone for your ideas and suggestions.
I thought I was stuck with no network until I replaced my desktop, when I had an idea: What if the router could handle whatever the was causing the switch to barf? I figured the router being "smart" and the switch not might make a difference. Luckily, the router and the switch are near enough that no major surgery was required to test this idea. I needed only clip a couple of zip ties and plug in.
Shazam! Both NIC's went into full function mode and the network stayed up. I needed only reset my MTU to normal (switch supports Jumbo Frames, router does not). So I re-configured my port aggregation and am once again re-connected to my server and the 'net. I still think the old mobo is on it's way out, but I'd like to get at least another six months out of her. When I do upgrade, it will be a full architecture change so it'll be pricey.
Thanks, everyone for your ideas and suggestions.
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