[realtek] rtl8139 half duplex problem

[Andrew Cooke]

Hi,

A few hours ago, I was trying to get a computer running with DHCP on 
cable modem when it started to show errors connected with eth0.  When I 
connected it back to the local network (ie no DHCP) and disabled DHCP 
support, it no longer worked.

It's possible I've done something stupid, but I'm worried the card is 
either broken, or that there's a driver problem.

Recompiling the kernel (which is 2.4.14 with preemptive and ext3 
patches) to produce 8139_DEBUG info I see (copied by hand as the 
computer has no network cnxn) the following on "ifconfig eth0 up"

rtl8139_open: ENTER
[...]
rtl8139_hw_start: ENTER
rtl_check_media: ENTER
mdio_read: ENTER
mdio_read: EXIT directly after using 8139 internal regs
eth0: setting half duplex based on auto negotiated parner ability 0000

I'm also sometimes seeing "task 'ifconfig' exit signal 17 in 
reparent_to_init" and the corresponding debug info is:

(lots of similar stuff snipped)
[...]
ether_crc: ENTER
ether_crc: EXIT, returning 2141400475
__set_rx_mode: EXIT
__set_rx_mode: ENTER
__set_rx_mode: eth0: rt18139_set_rx_mode(1003) done -- Rx config 0e00f78e
ether_crc: ENTER
ether_crc: EXIT, returning 2141400475
__set_rx_mode: EXIT
task 'ifconfig' exit signal 17 in reparent_to_init

Could someone explain to me what all that might mean? (I have "green 
lights" at hub and card, so it *is* connected!)

I'm afraid I have no more details about the card make - it's just what 
arrived in the box a week ago.  It was working just fine with this 
kernel (I went back to another kernel - with slightly different compile 
options that didn't support DHCP - that I'd been using, and that didn't 
work either).

I can recompile kernels without patches, if necessary (I have 2.4.14 
source checked out somewhere) and also produce more accurate data by 
copying logs via floppy (instead of notes on paper) if any numbers are 
critical (I'm guessing that with the above you'll be able to see the 
flow through the code OK).

Oh, and power cycling the computer didn't work either. :-/

Thanks,
Andrew