Like other Compaq ProLiant server adapters, the NC7131 supports advanced server features such as PCI Hot Plug, Network Fault Tolerance, Transmit Load Balancing, and Switch-Assisted Load Balancing. TLB provides both failover and balancing of transmit traffic across all adapters for increased performance. Like all Compaq Gigabit server adapters, the NC7131, supports jumbo frames as a way to achieve higher throughput and better CPU utilization when deploy in a network infrastructure that supports them.
Jumbo frames are particularly useful for database transfers and tape backups.
The NC7131 supports Interrupt Coalescence in all the major OS environments, reducing CPU utilization. The NC7131 also supports Receive and Transmit TCP Checksum Offloading, as well as Transmit IP Checksum Offloading under Windows 2000. The Network Fault Tolerance feature of the NC7131 ensures that the server can always keep an active link. After installing a second, compatible adapter, if the primary network connection fails, the second, backup adapter will automatically take over, retaining the network connection. The NC7131 can be configured to fail over to any NC31xx , NC61xx , or NC71xx adapter by using the latest drivers.