RTL8139 still "jams"

[Alexander Dietrich]

Hi,

for some reasons I didn't receive my posting from the list, so
I'll try again:
--------------------------------------------------------------

I still have a problem with an RTL8139A-based card:

I have two computers with the same network card. Computer A is a
K6-2 300 with a VIA MVP4 chipset and Computer B is a K6-3 400 with
an ALi Aladdin V chipset. Both run on RedHat 6.0 with kernel 2.2.14,
both are connected to a 100 Mbit hub.

The problem: when transfering large files from B to A, A stops
responding after a couple of megabytes. It is not even possible
to ping between the computers anymore, local traffic is not affected.
I don't receive any error messages of transmission failures or
things like that in /var/log/messages or elsewhere.

I can get the card working again by taking the interface down and up
on A with the /etc/rc.d/init.d/network script.
I tried driver versions 1.07, 1.08 and 1.08a and also changed the PCI
slot the card is in and exchanged the cards between A and B, nothing
helped.

When copying the same files from A to B I don't have any problems.
Another twist: the same card worked in an older third computer with
a P90 and some old Intel chipset.

So what is happening here ? Is it the card itself or the driver failing ?
And why is the card failing only on this new system, is the data coming in
too fast ? But computer B is even faster, so why doesn't it have any
problems ?

I'm going to borrow a 3Com card from a friend and see if it works better.
This is neither a cheap nor nice "solution" to the problem, but this
card/driver is starting to waste my time and I need the system working.
I had always thought of the Realtek cards as cheap but usable, too bad.

Does anybody have any ideas ?

Regards,
Alexander Dietrich
-- 
| Alexander Dietrich | Norderstedt, Germany |
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