RE: 8169 Intermittent ifup Failure Issue With RTL8102E Chipset in Intel's New D945GCLF Atom Board (Not the Initial Modprobe Crash, Another Problem)

["Michael Grollman" <mgrollman@nscus.com>]

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I can pass additionally on the following observation, if it helps some more
clever than I:

In a boot where the RTL8102 is going to work, just prior to DHCP initiation
in the boot process, it will print:

	r8169: eth0: link up
	r8169: eth0: link up

Exactly twice.

Whereas, in any boot where it is on the road to failure, it will print it
exactly once:

	r8169: eth0: link up

No idea what it means, but the observation is very consistent.  The dmesg
log also supports this.  I attach a dmesg.gz log from a successful
2.5.26-rc8 boot, with eth0 working, to support this observation.

-Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: Mario_Limonciello@Dell.com [mailto:Mario_Limonciello@Dell.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 8:25 PM
To: mgrollman@nscus.com; matthew@wil.cx; romieu@fr.zoreil.com
Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org; lkml@metanurb.dk; akpm@linux-foundation.org;
linux-pci@vger.kernel.org
Subject: RE: 8169 Intermittent ifup Failure Issue With RTL8102E Chipset in
Intel's New D945GCLF Atom Board (Not the Initial Modprobe Crash, Another
Problem)

This is *not* just specific to your hardware.  I've encountered it on two
other platforms that have RTL8102's.  I posted some comments in another
thread the other day.

-----Original Message-----
From: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org]
On Behalf Of mgrollman@nscus.com
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 9:58 PM
To: 'Matthew Wilcox'; 'Francois Romieu'
Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org; 'Kasper Sandberg'; akpm@linux-foundation.org;
linux-pci@vger.kernel.org
Subject: RE: 8169 Intermittent ifup Failure Issue With RTL8102E Chipset in
Intel's New D945GCLF Atom Board (Not the Initial Modprobe Crash, Another
Problem)

Matthew,

The only remedy I have found to date is a system reboot, sometimes a soft
one will work, sometimes a full power down is needed.  It may take a few
boots to get it happy.  If I can get it to boot with the Realtek working OK,
the system does not seem to fail, even after hours of use.  So either it
comes up working, or it does not.

But I am open to any ideas to try and correct!  I have an extra motherboard
around, if you guys think it may be in this particular unit's hardware.

- Michael


-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Wilcox [mailto:matthew@wil.cx]
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 7:35 PM
To: Francois Romieu
Cc: Michael Grollman; netdev@vger.kernel.org; Kasper Sandberg;
akpm@linux-foundation.org; linux-pci@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: 8169 Intermittent ifup Failure Issue With RTL8102E Chipset in
Intel's New D945GCLF Atom Board (Not the Initial Modprobe Crash, Another
Problem)

On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 11:59:18PM +0200, Francois Romieu wrote:
> (linux-pci Cced)
> 
> Michael Grollman <mgrollman@nscus.com> :
> [...]
> > Per instructions, I built an 2.6.26-rc8 system on the target Intel 
> > hardware, and was able to re-recreate the intermittent failure of
the
8201.
> >  When in failure mode, the lspci -vx' display of the pci registers 
> > of the
> > 8102 is as follows:
> >
> > 01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. 
> > RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev ff) (prog-if ff)
> >    !!! Unknown header type 7f
> > 00: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
> > 10: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
> > 20: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
> > 30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

Mmm.  All f's means that the device has fallen off the bus.  Nothing is
responding when we ask the device about it's config space.  What do you do
to get this device into this state?

--
Intel are signing my paycheques ... these opinions are still mine "Bill,
look, we understand that you're interested in selling us this operating
system, but compare it to ours.  We can't possibly take such a retrograde
step."

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