VIA VT6102 Rhine-II + RealTek RTL8139C : file transfer hangs on Linux

Hi everybody,

I had been connecting laptop and desktop using PLIP for ages without a single problem. Then I got a new laptop and upgraded to ethernet. Although the speed is amazing compared to PLIP, the transfer of even moderately sized files (from 2M about) sometimes hangs the connection. This happens as well with ftp than nfs transfers. A file diff accross the network may also hang. If I manually remove and restart the network interfaces and routes on the desktop system, it wakes up. But then next time the transfer hangs, the full desktop system will hang as well, with a hard reboot necessary. All other network applications I have tried work perfectly (telnet, masquerading, rdate). Removing the gateway does not help. On Windows XP / 98 the problem does not show, file transfer is OK. I have been like this for months. I didnt find anything on group or web archives. I have strictly no clue. Could someone help me, or tell me where to ask if this is not the right place ?

laptop (Estragon), kernel 2.6.7 module via_rhine

[alex@Estragon alex]$ ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0D:87:F6:39:31 inet addr:192.168.1.3 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:248 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:253 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:100276 (97.9 Kb) TX bytes:26378 (25.7 Kb) Interrupt:10 Base address:0xdc00

lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:26 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:26 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:1700 (1.6 Kb) TX bytes:1700 (1.6 Kb)

[alex@Estragon alex]$ route Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface Vanille * 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 169.254.0.0 * 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo 127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo

desktop computer (Vanille) : kernel 2.4.26 tried modules rtl8139 and 8139too : same problem

[alex@Vanille alex]$ cat /proc/pci Bus 0, device 14, function 0: Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 16). IRQ 11. Master Capable. Latency=64. Min Gnt=32.Max Lat=64. I/O at 0xda00 [0xdaff]. Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xdffffe00 [0xdffffeff].

[alex@Vanille alex]$ ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0E:2E:23:3E:84 inet addr:192.168.1.1 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:187 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:137 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 Interrupt:11 Base address:0xda00

lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:200 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:200 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

[alex@Vanille alex]$ route Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface Estragon * 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo [root@Vanille alex]# rtl8139-diag -aem rtl8139-diag.c:v2.13 2/28/2005 Donald Becker ( snipped-for-privacy@scyld.com)
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#1: Found a RealTek RTL8139 adapter at 0xda00. The RealTek chip appears to be active, so some registers will not be read. To see all register values use the '-f' flag. RealTek chip registers at 0xda00 0x000: 232e0e00 0000843e 80000000 00000000 0008a07e 0008a09a 0008a07e 0008a03c 0x020: 013b8010 013b8610 013b8c10 013b9210 013b0000 0d0a0000 714c713c 0000c07f 0x040: 74400400 0000940e 7e28cc96 00000000 000d1000 00000000 0088e500 00100090 0x060: 1100f00f 01e1782d 000145e1 00000000 00000704 000107c8 60f60c59 7b732660. Realtek station address 00:0e:2e:23:3e:84, chip type 'rtl8139C'. Receiver configuration: Normal unicast and hashed multicast Rx FIFO threshold 256 bytes, maximum burst 256 bytes, 32KB ring Transmitter enabled with normal settings, maximum burst 256 bytes. Tx entry #0 status 0008a07e complete, 126 bytes. Tx entry #1 status 0008a09a complete, 154 bytes. Tx entry #2 status 0008a07e complete, 126 bytes. Tx entry #3 status 0008a03c complete, 60 bytes. Flow control: Tx disabled Rx disabled. The chip configuration is 0x10 0x0d, MII half-duplex mode. No interrupt sources are pending. Decoded EEPROM contents: PCI IDs -- Vendor 0x10ec, Device 0x8139. PCI Subsystem IDs -- Vendor 0x10ec, Device 0x8139. PCI timer settings -- minimum grant 32, maximum latency 64. General purpose pins -- direction 0xe5 value 0x12. Station Address 00:0E:2E:23:3E:84. Configuration register 0/1 -- 0x0d / 0xc2. EEPROM active region checksum is 0864. The RTL8139 does not use a MII transceiver. It does have internal MII-compatible registers: Basic mode control register 0x1100. Basic mode status register 0x782d. Autonegotiation Advertisement 0x01e1. Link Partner Ability register 0x45e1. Autonegotiation expansion 0x0001. Disconnects 0x0000. False carrier sense counter 0x0000. NWay test register 0x0704. Receive frame error count 0x0000.
Reply to
Alexandre Oberlin
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There are many possibilities here, bad cables, bad hardware, bad/misconfigured drivers, etc.

I'm sure you've checked all the usual stuff. I would suggest checking the memory with memtest-86, I've seen problems like this before and if it wasn't a bad NIC or driver problem, it was usually the system memory had an obscure flakey error.

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