GIGABYTE GA-EX38-DQ6, GA-EX38-DS4, GA-EX38T-DQ6, GA-X38-DQ6, GA-X38T-DQ6 Owner's Manual

A. Teaming Part

a. Create Teaming Flow

(i) From the start up menu, left click the icon in ProgramsÆRealtek Teaming and VLAN

Æ Realtek Teaming and VLAN Utility, as shown in the figure below:

(ii) The initialize user interface is showed below:

(iii) Teaming needs to set three parts

1. select adapters (at least two adpaters)

2. select teaming mode

There are three teaming modes for user choosing. (Default = 802.3ad)

(1) General Switch Mode

This mode is supported to general switch (without teaming function swtich).

(2) FEC/GEC

The mode needs the switch supports FEC/GEC. So, the switch has to setup

FEC/GEC mode and which ports are using for teaming.

(3) Link Aggregation \ LACP (802.3ad)

The mode needs switch support LACP. LACP is similar with FEC/GEC. But LACP

doesn’t setup which ports are using for teaming. LACP negotiates the ports with the

switch that will make up the team.

3. after selecting teaming adapter and teaming mode, click teaming button

(iv) If the Teaming created completely, the Dialog will show “Create Virtual Adapter For

Teaming Complete” and click OK.

(There are two message boxes which are “Start

Disable Adapters” and “Start unbinding” show during creating teaming process)

The step will cost one or two minutes.

(vi) Network Component has a new Virtual Adapter For Teaming

b. Teaming Notes

(i) The gigabit switch prefer supporting teaming function (likely FEC/GEC,

LACP…)

If the gigabit switch doesn’t support teaming function, the performance of Inbound

Traffic (Rx) will only have one adapter performance.

(ii) Take care the teaming switch how to decide the port to send packets

Although the teaming switch could upgrade the Rx performance, some particulars would

cause the Rx performance same with not using gigabit teaming switch. The Rx traffic of

the teaming server is from client to server through the teaming switch. So, if the teaming

switch decides which port to send the packets by the information of the client, the

situation all packets form client to server send by the same port may be occurred. For

example, some gigabit teaming switches decide the port send the packets by the last-bit

MAC address of the client (Source). So, if the last-bit MAC address of the two clients is

the same, all the packets will send by the same port. Therefore, the teaming only has one

adapter to receive the packets. That causes the Rx performance cannot upgrade. The

solution is to make sure the last-bit MAC address of the two clients is different.

(iii) Teaming switch has the port mirror function

Some switches have the port mirror function. We need to disable to function or not to

plug in these ports.

(iv) Server and Switch mode is conflict

In general case, the mode of the teaming server and the teaming switch should be the

same. When the mode of the teaming server is LACP and the mode of the teaming

switch is FEC/GEC, the adapters will send LACP packets to negotiate the ports with the

switch that will make up the team.

But teaming switch will ignore the LACP packets and

the network works likely FEC/GEC mode. When the mode of the teaming server is