Network card disconnects randomly.

dlofnep

I have a problem with my network card, which appears to disconnect at random intervals. It can happen if alot of data is flowing (1mbps +), or if I'm watching a youtube video with the screen maximised.

A quick look at the /var/log/messages, shows the following when the disconnection occurs:

Jul 18 11:22:47 earth kernel: [442391.381255] b44: eth0: powering down PHY
Jul 18 11:22:48 earth kernel: [442392.000098] b44: eth0: Link is down.
Jul 18 11:22:51 earth kernel: [442395.000171] b44: eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex.
Jul 18 11:22:51 earth kernel: [442395.000176] b44: eth0: Flow control is off for TX and off for RX.

lspci lists card as follows:

dlofnep@earth:~$ lspci | grep Eth
04:07.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)

OS: Ubuntu Linux (2.6.28-18-generic Kernel)

Anyone have any ideas?

dlofnep

Hm, reading up a bit - it appears that my network card and linux aren't exactly on friendly terms. Still looking for solutions - if anyone has any ideas in the meantime, I would appreciate it.

I've tried two different kernel's - but OSS doesn't agree with newer kernels, so I've forced to use 2.6.28-18 for the moment. Worst case scenario, I'll buy a new NIC.

Snowbat

cat /proc/interrupts

Is eth0 sharing an interrupt with your display adapter?

rfrederick

Broadcom cards didn't seem to play too well with Linux kernels in the past from what I've experienced. I've never really liked the fact that Broadcom provides their drivers as binary blobs that aren't included in the mainline kernel. Some distros such as RHEL (AS 4 at least) don't support Broadcom cards, which is why I usually get an add-on NIC if the on-board NICs on a server are Broadcoms. That being said my Debian boxes with Broadcom NICs seem to work okay.

dlofnep

Here's the interrupts.

dlofnep@earth:~$ cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 3198 XT-PIC-XT timer
1: 2 IO-APIC-edge i8042
7: 1 IO-APIC-edge
8: 1 IO-APIC-edge rtc0
9: 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi acpi
12: 4 IO-APIC-edge i8042
16: 32533647 IO-APIC-fasteoi nvidia
19: 18076908 IO-APIC-fasteoi eth0
20: 3192426 IO-APIC-fasteoi ohci_hcd:usb2
21: 3 IO-APIC-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb1
22: 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi sata_nv
23: 158954664 IO-APIC-fasteoi sata_nv, oss_hdaudio0
NMI: 0 Non-maskable interrupts
LOC: 113792970 Local timer interrupts
RES: 0 Rescheduling interrupts
CAL: 0 Function call interrupts
TLB: 0 TLB shootdowns
SPU: 0 Spurious interrupts
ERR: 1
MIS: 0

dlofnep

rfrederick wrote: »

Broadcom cards didn't seem to play too well with Linux kernels in the past from what I've experienced. I've never really liked the fact that Broadcom provides their drivers as binary blobs that aren't included in the mainline kernel. Some distros such as RHEL (AS 4 at least) don't support Broadcom cards, which is why I usually get an add-on NIC if the on-board NICs on a server are Broadcoms. That being said my Debian boxes with Broadcom NICs seem to work okay.

Yeah, the problem seems to surround this specific NIC from what i've read. If I have to buy a new NIC, it doesn't bother me - but I'd like to figure out what's causing the problem for the sake of knowing.

Snowbat

Is this NIC a PCI card in a desktop machine? If yes, have you tried it in another PCI slot?

Capt'n Midnight

turn off power saving ?

tiny chance this is stored on board NIC so you may need to turn off with a windows driver (as if that's plausible)

try a keep alive ping in the background (straw, clutch)

dlofnep

I don't believe it's anything to do with power management, because it doesn't occur when the system is idle - it occurs when 1mbps+ data is sent, or when videos are maximized. It quite possibly could be a device conflict between the video card and network card as previously outlined. I think I'll just get a new network card.

And Snowboat, yes - it's PCI and yes, I've tried a second slot. It's not the slot - it's this card itself and linux - they are notoriously problematic.

Capt'n Midnight

in that case life is too short to be messing with stuff from the likes of Broadcom

dlofnep

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

in that case life is too short to be messing with stuff from the likes of Broadcom

Aye yeah, my thoughts exactly!

rfrederick

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

in that case life is too short to be messing with stuff from the likes of Broadcom

Amen to that!