[vortex] Problems with 3c59x

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On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, Donald Becker wrote:

> You should be getting far more information than this.
> Try adding this line to /etc/syslog.conf
> kern.*		-/var/log/debug

I'm using syslog-ng and all infos are going in /var/log/kernel. At 
http://linux.dej.ro/3c59x/kernel.txt I posted the part wich is interesting 
for us (between Dec 12 17:29:24 and Dec 12 17:43:29(when the machine it was 
rebooted)).

> Bingo!
> 
> What were the messages before this one?  Something about "interrupt
> blocked"?  What does 'vortex-diag -af' report?  My guess is that
> interrupts are posted that are not being handled.

If you remember that problems apeer on my machine when I'm used the 
eepro100 driver (Net Drivers!?! thread on linux-net).

> Hmmm, you are passing a bunch of traffic over this link.

It's not so much :) It was up for 3 days.

> Ahhh, buglet.  This can never happen in normal use, but it can when the
> Tx queue was full before being shut down.
> 
> Fixed for the next version.
> 
> >  . . . Lots of: eth1: Tx Ring full, refusing to send buffer. :(
> 
> What was the status?  Something with the low bit set?

I don't understand this. Be more explicit and tell me what to do when the 
card hangs again.

> > Dec 12 17:34:31 lapd eth1: vortex_close() status e401, Tx status 00.
> Again, interrupts active.

Why the card loosing the interrupt? Is this a kernel bug, a driver bug or 
a mainboard bug?

> This appears to be the old-time IOAPIC bug, where interrupts suddently
> stop working.  You will have to verify this by running 'vortex-diag -af'
> when the interface hangs.

I have to wait for the next time ... but I'm very patient :))

> Passing 'noapic' is the only known work-around.

This option will afect my SMP box?

> Bogdan, do you know where there is a listing of which APIC bugs were
> fixed when?
> 
> I guess I can't suggest trying a newer kernel ;->.
> Ask AA about "APCI interrupt failures".

Newer kernel? My kernel is 2.4.20 the latest and I can't use 2.5.
At http://linux.dej.ro/3c59x/ I posted the patch over 2.4.20 vanilla wich 
I applied and it runs on my machine.


Thank you,
Cosmin