Re: e1000 driver and samba

["L F" <lfabio.linux@gmail.com>]

> To me it suggests that your speed is not full-duplex. Check `ethtool eth0` output
> and see if your link is full duplex or not. also check previous kernel messages
> and see what the e1000 driver posted there for link speed messages (as in "e1000:
>  Link is UP speed XXX duplex YYY")
from dmesg:
device eth4 entered promiscuous mode
e1000: eth4: e1000_watchdog: NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex,
Flow Control: RX/TX
[It looks like the e1000 driver that came in the kernel is Intel(R)
PRO/1000 Network Driver - version 7.3.20-k2 - would there be any
benefit to trying the 7.6.5 from the Intel website again?]

from ethtool:
beehive:~# ethtool eth4
Settings for eth4:
        Supported ports: [ TP ]
        Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Speed: 1000Mb/s
        Duplex: Full
        Port: Twisted Pair
        PHYAD: 0
        Transceiver: internal
        Auto-negotiation: on
        Supports Wake-on: d
        Wake-on: d
        Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
        Link detected: yes

As best I can tell, the card is in full duplex mode.
Because of a 'running out of ideas' compulsion I disassembled and
reassembled the machine completely, ran a memory test overnight,
changed the cable AGAIN with a CAT6 of the shortest possible length.
That plus samba-3.0.26-1 seem to have cured the disconnects - as a
matter of fact I CAN'T get the machine to disconnect anymore, even
under completely artificial loads (i.e. stress test quality, not
average use) from five clients (I know, that isn't saying much, but it
was failing spectacularly at ONE before, so I figure this may be worth
mentioning).
However, the incorrect file transfer still occurs with large files
(500MB+). My original thought behind the disassembly/reassembly/memory
test was that possibly the issue was hardware related, but I seem to
have eliminated that possiblity.
Further, I checked. There are currently 20+ machines in production
with the same debian distribution and kernel, running on 975X / P965
boards, all with r8169 drivers, doing RAID5 fileserver duty. They
work. With significant numbers (up to 65) of clients. This one doesn't
want to. I can't help but think it's the NIC/driver combo, but it
seems absurd to me.

Rgds,
LF

> Cheers,
>
> Auke
>