Debian Woody eepro100/8139too

I've installed Debian Woody on a computer with a decent Internet
connection thought an Intel EE Pro 100 network card.

After a couple of days toying with it through ssh, I discovered that,
for a couple of minutes and at least once a day, the network card
freezes. In /var/log/messages there is no mention of any failure at
all.

First, I thought there is something wrong with the network card, but
when I replaced it with a generic Realtek 8139C, the problems
persisted. Using the generic Debian Woody bf2.4 kernel did not help at
all.
What could be wrong? Should I look somewhere else?

TIA,
Andrei Maxim

On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 04:39:45 -0700, Andrei Maxim wrote:

> I've installed Debian Woody on a computer with a decent Internet
> connection thought an Intel EE Pro 100 network card.
>
> After a couple of days toying with it through ssh, I discovered that, for
> a couple of minutes and at least once a day, the network card freezes. In
> /var/log/messages there is no mention of any failure at all.
>
> First, I thought there is something wrong with the network card, but when
> I replaced it with a generic Realtek 8139C, the problems persisted. Using
> the generic Debian Woody bf2.4 kernel did not help at all.
> What could be wrong? Should I look somewhere else?

I've used both those cards in Debian Woody (I'm using an EEPro100 right
now) and have never had any such problem. So I think you should look
elsewhere. What about the switch/router/whatever it is connected to? Do
you have the opportunity to change this? Have you tried changing the cable?

BTW the EEPro100 is the better card. So if you do find a problem
elsewhere, I recommend switching it back.

Regards, Ian

I have a tekComm 5 port switch, which crashes once in a while when there is an
apparatus connected to port 1. When the apparatus is connected to an another
port, the switch stops crashing.
I have also Debian Woody in my configuration in addition to two win98 machines.
The switch comes under heavy traffic sometimes, but problems exist only when
the first port is used.

On 13 Oct 2004 04:39:45 -0700, Andrei Maxim <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I've installed Debian Woody on a computer with a decent Internet
> connection thought an Intel EE Pro 100 network card.
>
> After a couple of days toying with it through ssh, I discovered that,
> for a couple of minutes and at least once a day, the network card
> freezes. In /var/log/messages there is no mention of any failure at
> all.
>
> First, I thought there is something wrong with the network card, but
> when I replaced it with a generic Realtek 8139C, the problems
> persisted. Using the generic Debian Woody bf2.4 kernel did not help at
> all.
> What could be wrong? Should I look somewhere else?

You did not disclose your internet connection method, but if multiple nics
have the same problem, look elsewhere. If you use pppoe in Linux, maybe
the nic it uses is attempting to do dhcp where no dhcp server exists, in
which case it may help to set the ethernet with a static IP in an unused
private network (since tcp/ip on that ethernet is not used, pppoe does
the tcp/ip).

Or it could be a reverse lookup timeout problem, because the public IP you
posted from has no name (or broken DNS).

Well, I posted from another computer, with another IP, but you were
right.

I was trying to configure it as a nameserver, but I forgot an ending
";" in named.conf so, I guess, when running BIND things went out of
hand. Last night I fixed that problem and so far, the computer seems
stable.

Right now I tend to believe that it was the faulty config file that
made all that mess, as I have used Debian before and I was impressed by
its stability.

Hopefully, now it's fixed.