Queue overflow and Total discards counters of IFSTAT -A increased at unused port

Applies to

• ONTAP 9
• Intel Network Interface Card
• Port show link down status
• ifconfig -a  show port is "<UP"

Issue

• No any error for NIC port.
• Only Tx side Queue overflow and Total discards counters increased.

Example:

IFSTAT -A:

-- interface e1b (XX days, XX hours, XX minutes, X second) --
RECEIVE
Total frames: 0 | Frames/second: 0 | Total bytes: 0
Bytes/second: 0 | Total errors: 0 | Errors/minute: 0

TRANSMIT
Total frames: 0 | Frames/second: 0 | Total bytes: 0
Bytes/second: 0 | Total errors: 0 | Errors/minute: 0
Total discards: 143k | Queue overflow: 143k | Multi/broadcast: 0