e1000 issue on DQ965GF board (was 24 lost ticks with 2.6.20.10 kernel)

[Michel Lespinasse <walken@zoy.org>]

On Wed, May 02, 2007 at 11:14:52AM -0700, Kok, Auke wrote:
> I just checked and the fix I was referring to earlier didn't make it into 
> 2.6.21-final. You can get 2.6.21-git1 from kernel.org which has the fix. See
> 
> http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/snapshots/patch-2.6.21-git1.log

Good. So I tried that patch (well, actually only the change visible at
http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/3/6/268). I patched it into a 2.6.20.11 kernel,
using the same config file as previously. The good news is that this fixes
my issue: there are no lost ticks anymore, and the link does negotiate a
gigabit connection. This is a great improvement for me :)

I still seem to hit an issue if using the ethtool command, though.
when using 'ethtool -s eth0 autoneg on', the link comes up at gigabit speed,
but a couple seconds later is comes down again, and then up at 100 megabits:

e1000: eth0: e1000_watchdog: NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex
e1000: eth0: e1000_watchdog: NIC Link is Down
e1000: eth0: e1000_watchdog: NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex
e1000: eth0: e1000_watchdog: 10/100 speed: disabling TSO

The same thing happens if I use ifdown eth0; ifup eth0 too. Once again,
I only observe this on my DQ965GF motherboard, the DG965RY board is fine
(stays at gigabit speed when I issue these commands).

Is this something you could easily reproduce at Intel or would you want me
to look into that issue on my system ?

Thanks,

-- 
Michel "Walken" Lespinasse
"Bill Gates is a monocle and a Persian cat away from being the villain
in a James Bond movie." -- Dennis Miller