Not just dual core, as I’ve seen this on single-core and quad-core boxes (haven’t touched an 8-core box yet, but I expect it would be the same there).

RSS and dual-NIC servers just don’t get along, period. All you can do in this case is disable all of the Scalable Networking pieces. See the post about “How to Install SP2 on SBS 2003″ for the full skinny.

You are the man, I would love to buy you a drink. I have been wrestling with this for 5 days. Have a Dell PowerEdge with Broadcom NIC’s TOE enabled. I read many references to this being the issue so I got Dell to kick in some Dual ported Intel NICS. First thing I did was to disable the Broadcoms, remove all the drivers and mgmt stuff then connect the Intel cards. Tried connectcomputer wizard with same results. I said &($%%@#%# and decided something must have happened during install with those Broadcoms and decided to rebuild clean with the new Intel NICS.
Tried connectcomptuer wizard and wala … Now I am ready to do 3 SBS installs to clients right? Wrong!!! Because afterwards I continued with all the MS updates (By the way I did the updates before I tried CCW the first time) and tried another computer. Got the page no load and https brought the web page up but errored during installation. Being convinced it was the SP3 for ISA2004 I began my search. Not finding any relevant info, I narrowed down to just connectcomputer wizard and found your beautiful article. I am wondering if 2 Dual Core Processors has any relevance? I think the RSS option apparently is only affected on machines with Dual Processors. I don’t understand it, but would like to know more.

Thanks again!!!!!!!!!!