I read something recently refering to the posibility of network interface cards failing during the date rollover. I was unable to finish the artical and can no longer remember the magazine it was in. Do any of you other tech types have any knollege of this subject? I'm working y2k remediation projects now but NIC's have never been mentioned as a potential POF.

-- MidwestMike_ (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), June 07, 1999

Answers

I don't know what article you've read, but I'm not aware of any NIC card that will fail due to Y2K bugs (and you're talking to someone who's consulted on a couple of NIC cards and drivers for vendors[g]).

Some of the higher-level stuff MIGHT be sensitive ("smart" hubs, etc), but the cards shouldn't be. It's conceivable that a driver could be sensitive (though I can't figure out why it should be). But the NIC cards themselves are only concerned with buffering and transmitting send/receive packets over the net.

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), June 07, 1999.

A minor miracle, Stephen and I agree on something! I've been playing with arcnet and ethernet cards since about 1986, and am not aware of any Y2K problems. Perhaps check the manufacturer's web site to verify this. They are always adding smarts to NIC, so anything is possible I guess. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), June 07, 1999.

I did once associate a creation-date string in the EPROM embedded in a NIC once, with the assignment of the NIC address. Just in case I wanted or needed to know when that NIC address had been assigned later. Turned out later never came. Certainly that date wasn't part of any packet processing. I think you can't put a date into the packet header below level 6 anyway, so that would definitely be a software decision by the developer of the protocol at that level (some future Netware, for example).

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 07, 1999.

The NICs would be irrelevant if (as I have heard) many of the routers and switches are noncompliant, to say nothing of the effects of the power companies not being in businesses for a few months...

my Y2K website: www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), June 07, 1999.

MinnesotaSmith:

Fortunately, investigation showed that there were almost no compliance issues that would have affected power generation and distribution, and those have been addressed. And investigation also showed that the noncompliant routers had logging issues that didn't interfere with their functionality. And the NICs don't have any problems either.

Two years ago, your fears were valid, because we didn't know. Now we know.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 07, 1999.

Sysman:

Keep it up and I WILL send you some blackberries. :)

Flint:

Exactly. Let's repeat together one more time ...

ENTERPRISE DATA PROBLEMS: Economic effects.

EMBEDDED/CONTROL PROBLEMS: Effects on power, water, oil, etc.

Two separate things.

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), June 07, 1999.