Question : False IP Conflict

Ok guys and gals, I've got a good one for you.

Running Exchange 2003 on a Server 2003 Standard box.  Periodically we get IP conflicts all over our grid that we think is related to this specific box somehow.  Following is the error message we get from this suspected box:

The system detected an address conflict for IP address 192.168.0.99 with the system having network hardware address 00:E0:A6:19:16:64. Network operations on this system may be disrupted as a result.

Now the interesting thing is, the MAC addy for the NIC in this box is 00:0E:A6:19:16:64, which as you'll notice, the third and fourth digits are inversed.  No where on our network do we have a MAC addy that matches that.  We run PowerConnect 5324 switches primarily.  Does anybody have any ideas, bug with Server 2k3?  Thanks.

Ryan

Answer : False IP Conflict

I saw this on our network once, and it was a bug in the SW on the LAN switches, not in any server. When rapid spanning tree was enabled on the switches, occasionally traffic load would cause one of the switches to start crunching MAC's and  corrupting its' arp tables. It would then report that a certain IP was at a corrupted MAC address, while another switch reported that IP at the real MAC address- hence, it looked as if there was an IP conflict between two hosts, but there really wasn't a conflict.

FYI, it was exactly the same behavior- one or two characters in the MAC address would be off. I would report the bug to the switch manufacturer- we got a patch and it fixed the problem.