[Fwd: Re: [eepro100] Twin laptops - one good NIC configuration - one bad]

[John Sved]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [eepro100] Twin laptops - one good NIC configuration - one bad
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 17:48:32 +0200
From: John Sved <johnsved@compuserve.com>
Organization: NSD  limited
To: Donald Becker <becker@scyld.com>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0206191534290.1669-100000@presario>

Last chapter .....

I called Dell this morning.  I was told to swap the Action Tec NIC + 56
K modem Combo internal card.

This moved the problem from Dell No. 1 to Dell No. 2.

I also tried every patch cable that I have just to be sure.

The conclusion is that the NIC chip is indeed very marginal.  Although
Dell state that they normally refer customers to the third party
suppliers in cases such as NICs and they only support custumers to get
NICs going but not to performance tune them, Dell will, in this case
(with so much trouble shooting effort) replace it within a day.  They
will come to me with a replacement module !  That must be in the service
contract !!

Thanks for your help Donald.

-- JS

Donald Becker wrote:
 >
 > On Wed, 19 Jun 2002, John Sved wrote:
 >
 >
 >> > What cable are you using?  This can happen if the cable is not paired
 >> > properly -- the link works during autonegotation at 10Mbps, but fails
 >> > with 100Mbps.
 >>
 >>I am using various CAT 5 patch cables rated for 100Mhz.  I have tried
 >>the usual cable swaps.
 >>
 >
 > Then you have a hardware problem.
 >
 >
 >>XXXX:~ # mii-diag --watch
 >>Using the default interface 'eth0'.
 >>Basic registers of MII PHY #1:  1000 782d 02a8 0154 05e1 45e1 0001 0000.
 >>
 > ...
 >
 >>I pulled out the cable, reinserted it and swapped with the patch cable
 >>on the no. 2 Dell (healthy one) as you can see below.
 >>
 >>Monitoring the MII transceiver status.
 >>21:03:52.824  Baseline value of MII BMSR (basic mode status register) is
 >>782d.
 >>21:03:56.327  MII BMSR now 7809:   no link, NWay busy, No Jabber (0000).
 >>
 >
 > Link failure.
 >
 >>21:03:59.837  MII BMSR now 7829:   no link, NWay done, No Jabber (45e1).
 >>     New link partner capability is 45e1 0003: 10/100 switch w/ flow
 >>control.
 >>
 >
 > Finished autonegotiation.
 >
 >
 >>21:03:59.847  MII BMSR now 782d: Good link, NWay done, No Jabber (45e1).
 >>21:04:02.357  MII BMSR now 7809:   no link, NWay busy, No Jabber (0000).
 >>
 >
 > Link failure after 2.5 seconds.  The transceiver expects to see
 > 100baseTx link beat within one second after negotiation.  This is at the
 > upper end of the limit that the transceiver should wait.
 > Autonegotiation can take up to 3 seconds.
 >
 >
 >>21:04:21.467  MII BMSR now 782d: Good link, NWay done, No Jabber (45e1).
 >>     New link partner capability is 45e1 0003: 10/100 switch w/ flow
 >>control.
 >>
 >
 > Presumably this is the cable swap?
 >
 >
 >>21:04:25.177  MII BMSR now 7809:   no link, NWay busy, No Jabber (0000).
 >>21:04:31.287  MII BMSR now 7829:   no link, NWay done, No Jabber (45e1).
 >>     New link partner capability is 45e1 0003: 10/100 switch w/ flow
 >>control.
 >>21:04:31.297  MII BMSR now 782d: Good link, NWay done, No Jabber (45e1).
 >>21:04:34.207  MII BMSR now 7809:   no link, NWay busy, No Jabber (0000).
 >>
 >
 > Yup, you have a link stability problem.  It really looks like hardware.
 >
 >