[vortex] At wit's end - help - 3c905B problem: hanging on LAN connection

[Donald Becker]

On Thu, 20 Dec 2001, Smoke wrote:

> I was wondering if anyone else had experienced problems using a 3C509B
> card on a LAN, and if so, what to do about it? My configuration is as

What driver version?
What is the detection message?

> The symptoms of this "hanging" are that the session freezes, and
> nothing else can use the ethernet interface (pings all fail,
> etc.). the only solution is to take down the interface, bring it back
> up, and add the necessary routing information again. then i have to

That does indicate that the interface is hanging.

> $ mii-diag -w
> Using the default interface 'eth0'.
> Basic registers of MII PHY #24:  3000 786d 0000 0000 01e1 0020 0004
> 2001.
>  Basic mode control register 0x3000: Auto-negotiation enabled.
>  You have link beat, and everything is working OK.
>  Your link partner is generating 10baseT link beat  (no autonegotiation).
>    End of basic transceiver information.
> 
> Monitoring the MII transceiver status.
> 18:29:35.888  Baseline value of MII BMSR (basic mode status register) is 786d.
> 18:31:18.231  MII BMSR now 7849:   no link, NWay busy, No Jabber (0000).
> 18:31:20.141  MII BMSR now 7869:   no link, NWay done, No Jabber (0020).
>    New link partner capability is 0020 0004: 10baseT.
> 18:31:20.153  MII BMSR now 786d: Good link, NWay done, No Jabber (0020).
> 
> after the first time stamp nothing happens until i start an X client
> and cause a hang. then the next 4 lines appear and the connection is
> hung.

Hmmm, it's difficult to tell if the driver is resetting the transceiver,
or if the link partner (the repeater) is going bad.

> Dec 20 19:11:03 noname kernel: eth0: transmit timed out, tx_status 00 status 0000.

Definitely a problem, but there are no obvious errors here.

> Dec 20 19:11:03 noname kernel:   diagnostics: net 0012 media 8880 dma 00000092.
> Dec 20 19:11:03 noname kernel:   Flags; bus-master 1, dirty 63(15) current 79(15)
> Dec 20 19:11:03 noname kernel:   Transmit list 013823c0 vs. c13825c0.
...
> Dec 20 19:11:03 noname kernel:   6: @c1382380  length 800003be status 000103be
> Dec 20 19:11:03 noname kernel:   7: @c13823c0  length 800005ea status 000005ea

Hmmm, this packet hasn't been marked as having been transmitted.
Something is blocking transmits from occuring.


Donald Becker				becker@scyld.com
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Second Generation Beowulf Clusters
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993