Re: RX performance degradation with e1000e in Linux 2.6.31 / F12

[Kelvin Ku <kelvin@telemetry-investments.com>]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 12:56:47PM -0600, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
> Kelvin Ku wrote:
> > After upgrading from Linux 2.6.30 (Fedora Core 11) to 2.6.31 (F12), I am
> > experiencing significant packet loss on an Intel 82574L NIC running on the
> > e1000e driver. I was not experiencing this with kernel 2.6.30. I notice 2.6.30
> > uses e1000e version 0.3.3.4-k4 whereas 2.6.31 uses version 1.0.2-k2.
> 
> And the driver version would be the significance. It appears there are 
> (very) serious issues with the e1000e driver and the 82574L chip. I'm 
> having to use 2.6.30 on a F12 server with an 82574L to have network 
> connectivity at all. The issue has been reported[1] and it is being 
> investigated. We had a hard time convincing Intel it wasn't a 
> motherboard manufacturer problem.
> 
> [1] 
> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2908463&group_id=42302&atid=447449
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Note that my RX performance issue arises with the latest Intel e1000e driver,
1.1.2-NAPI, and an older Intel driver, 0.5.18.3-NAPI, as well. I can't get an
even older version of the driver, 0.4.1.7, to compile on Linux 2.6.31, probably
because the kernel API has changed since that driver was released.

- Kelvin