Forcedeth: Nvidia NIC goes up and down

Forcedeth: Nvidia NIC goes up and down

[Anders Rune Jensen]

Hi

I recently invested in a asus m2n-mx. The motherboard features a nvidia
1gbit NIC (lspci says 00:07.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Ethernet
(rev a2)). I have it connected to my 1gbit switch together with another
machine. The problem is that very frequently (sometimes several times
each minute), the NIC goes down for a few seconds and then goes up
again. In the dmesg log I can see:

Jul  2 21:01:26 [kernel] eth0: link down.
Jul  2 21:01:28 [kernel] eth0: link up.
Jul  2 21:01:57 [kernel] eth0: link down.
Jul  2 21:01:59 [kernel] eth0: link up.
Jul  2 21:02:34 [kernel] eth0: link down.
Jul  2 21:02:36 [kernel] eth0: link up.
Jul  2 21:03:15 [kernel] eth0: link down.
Jul  2 21:03:18 [kernel] eth0: link up.

I've tried changing the cable and changing the port in the switch
without luck.

Sadly the motherboard only has 2 pci slots, which is already taken, so
adding another NIC is not an option. The wireless interface is working
perfectly fine on the machine so the problem seems related to the NIC.

I've tried fiddling with ethtool but I can't seem to make the NIC run at
100mbit. If I disable autoneg nothing seems to be working. Output from
ethtool:

Settings for eth0:
	Supported ports: [ MII ]
	Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
	                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
	                        1000baseT/Full 
	Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
	Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
	                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
	                        1000baseT/Full 
	Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
	Speed: 1000Mb/s
	Duplex: Full
	Port: MII
	PHYAD: 1
	Transceiver: external
	Auto-negotiation: on
	Supports Wake-on: g
	Wake-on: d
	Link detected: yes

Any idea how what I can do to debug this issue further?

Please cc me as I'm not subscribed. Thanks in advance

--
Anders Rune Jensen

Re: Forcedeth: Nvidia NIC goes up and down

[Anders Rune Jensen]

On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 22:43 +0200, jos.huisken@kpnplanet.nl wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> I have a similar issue. The network drops away randomly for short periods (several to ten(s) seconds).
> Strange enough nothing is reported is syslog, and indeed from the machine itself pinging works perfectly to another machine.
> From that other machine however the connections looks dead in those periods...
> 
> I'm running kernel 2.6.18.8-0.5-default on a SUSE 10.2 machine with a ASUS M2NPV-VM board.
> Have tried both the default "0.59" and "0.62-Driver Package V1.23" version of forcedeth
> Tried 2 BIOSes: 0901 and 1001.
> 
> Also have tried several kernel options independently: noapic, pci=routeirq, acpi=off, pci=nomsi
> All did not help.
> 
> 
> Any suggestions?

I got it working by connecting the network card my old 100mbit hub. It
seems that the problem is only when it runs a 1gbit. So my setup is now
1gbit switch <> computers, 1mbit hub <> machine with broken netcard.

This is good enough for now, since I don't really transfer that much
data to and from the machine, but of course I would like to have 1gbit
working for when I actually do need it ;-)

> BTW I'm not subscribed, please CC me personally.
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> -- Jos

--
Anders Rune Jensen
http://people.iola.dk/anders/

Re: Forcedeth: Nvidia NIC goes up and down

[jos.huisken]

Hi,


I have a similar issue. The network drops away randomly for short periods (several to ten(s) seconds).
Strange enough nothing is reported is syslog, and indeed from the machine itself pinging works perfectly to another machine.
>From that other machine however the connections looks dead in those periods...

I'm running kernel 2.6.18.8-0.5-default on a SUSE 10.2 machine with a ASUS M2NPV-VM board.
Have tried both the default "0.59" and "0.62-Driver Package V1.23" version of forcedeth
Tried 2 BIOSes: 0901 and 1001.

Also have tried several kernel options independently: noapic, pci=routeirq, acpi=off, pci=nomsi
All did not help.


Any suggestions?
BTW I'm not subscribed, please CC me personally.


Thanks in advance,
-- Jos


00:14.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Ethernet Controller (rev a1)
        Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Unknown device 816a
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 0 (250ns min, 5000ns max)
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 169
        Region 0: Memory at fe02b000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Region 1: I/O ports at c800 [size=8]
        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold+)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable+ DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-


Settings for eth0:
        Supported ports: [ MII ]
        Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Speed: 100Mb/s
        Duplex: Full
        Port: MII
        PHYAD: 1
        Transceiver: external
        Auto-negotiation: on
        Supports Wake-on: g
        Wake-on: d
        Link detected: yes