Linux Lock-up on Broadcom Gigabit Card

Good day,

I am presently getting hard lock-up on an AMD Dual-Opteron PC using a
Tyan Motherboard with dual Broadcom Extreme Gigabit cards.

Transferring small files seems fine, but on any file larger than 12Mb, the
Linux server locks-up solid and has to be powered down to restart the
PC.

I have even tried setting the MTU down to 1500 on the Broadcom
card, but that seemed to make no difference. The PC is running
Suse Linux 9.1 (64-bit) and using the Broadcom tg3 driver, if anyone
has any pointers or suggestions as to where to look next I would
be very grateful.

Thanks in advance

Glenn

--
Glenn Turnbull, Jhb, RSA
Tel (011) 374-6799 / FAX (011) 374-7044




Glenn Turnbull

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 17:27:35 +0200, Glenn Turnbull wrote:

> Good day,
>
> I am presently getting hard lock-up on an AMD Dual-Opteron PC using a
> Tyan Motherboard with dual Broadcom Extreme Gigabit cards.
>
> Transferring small files seems fine, but on any file larger than 12Mb, the
> Linux server locks-up solid and has to be powered down to restart the
> PC.
>
> I have even tried setting the MTU down to 1500 on the Broadcom
> card, but that seemed to make no difference. The PC is running
> Suse Linux 9.1 (64-bit) and using the Broadcom tg3 driver, if anyone
> has any pointers or suggestions as to where to look next I would
> be very grateful.
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Glenn

We had similar issues about 12 months ago... if I call, the issue
was that the OEM drivers from broadcom sucked. We figured out what
Kernel Drivers to use and went with them.

jack



--
D.A.M. - Mothers Against Dyslexia

see http://www.jacksnodgrass.com for my contact info.

jack - Grapevine/Richardson

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Hi Jack,

I was beginning to suspect the Broadcom drivers and even though it was
using the tg3 driver, the problem seemed too severe. I have now disabled
the Broadcom cards and enabled the on-board Intel 100Mb NIC and
it now seems to be working fine. The machine is sitting only on
a 100Mb segment, so the Gigabit speed probably wont be needed
for some time, and by then perhaps I'll have found a driver that
works.

Thanks for the help, I was hoping the tg3 driver was *not* the problem,
but I guess there is still a conflict in there somewhere.

Best regards

Glenn



"Jack Snodgrass" <(E-Mail Removed)-for-details> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed) ass.com-for-details...
> On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 17:27:35 +0200, Glenn Turnbull wrote:
>
>> Good day,
>>
>> I am presently getting hard lock-up on an AMD Dual-Opteron PC using a
>> Tyan Motherboard with dual Broadcom Extreme Gigabit cards.
>>
>> Transferring small files seems fine, but on any file larger than 12Mb,
>> the
>> Linux server locks-up solid and has to be powered down to restart the
>> PC.
>>
>> I have even tried setting the MTU down to 1500 on the Broadcom
>> card, but that seemed to make no difference. The PC is running
>> Suse Linux 9.1 (64-bit) and using the Broadcom tg3 driver, if anyone
>> has any pointers or suggestions as to where to look next I would
>> be very grateful.
>>
>> Thanks in advance
>>
>> Glenn
>
> We had similar issues about 12 months ago... if I call, the issue
> was that the OEM drivers from broadcom sucked. We figured out what
> Kernel Drivers to use and went with them.
>
> jack
>
>
>
> --
> D.A.M. - Mothers Against Dyslexia
>
> see http://www.jacksnodgrass.com for my contact info.
>
> jack - Grapevine/Richardson
>
>
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Glenn Turnbull <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I am presently getting hard lock-up on an AMD Dual-Opteron PC using a
> Tyan Motherboard with dual Broadcom Extreme Gigabit cards.
>
> Transferring small files seems fine, but on any file larger than 12Mb, the
> Linux server locks-up solid and has to be powered down to restart the PC.

We've got dual-Opteron server built with Tyan S2880UGNR Thunder K8S mo/bo.
Its on-board Ethernet port is served by tg3 driver w/out problems (although
initially, more than a year ago, it wasn't that good). Right now the server
is running 2.4.21-27.0.2.ELsmp kernel (tg3.c:v3.10RH (September 14, 2004)),
and previous kernel was strings 2.4.21-20.ELsmp (tg3.c:v3.6RH (June 12, 2004)).
Distribution is RedHat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 4 (for AMD64). The "RH" part
in the driver version provides a clue that RedHat might have modified it a bit.

--
andrei