I have a HP NC360T 2 ports NIC card, it is using the Intel 82571EB chipset. Could anyone explain to me why when the network cable is unplugged from the NIC Port, the CPU Utilization will go up to 60 to 70% for 3 to 4 seconds, causing my keyboard, mouse and application to hang for that few seconds. The OS is Windows 2003 SP1 Standard Server. My server also come with the embedded NIC, which is the NC373i, when I unplug the nic card from the NC373i, there is no CPU utilization, my keyboard, mouse and application have no issue. At first I thought maybe due to the Intel and Broadcom driver. But my other server has the NC7170, which is using Intel driver, but when I unplug that nic cable from the NC7170, there is no CPU utilization neither. But the NC7170 is a PCI-X adapter. I only have one PCI-Express NIC to try. Not sure is there anyone have a PCI-Express NIC using Intel or Broadcom driver. When unplug the NIC cable, the CPU utilization will go up to 70% for few seconds or not? If yes, why it will generate so high CPU utilization, while the other nic controller has no such behavior.