[PLUG] 2.4.20 kernel and 3com ethernet card?

Russ Gilman-Hunt gilmanhunt at comcast.net
Wed Oct 26 20:08:59 UTC 2005


Server is a Fedora Core 3 computer, dual opteron. Every day or three (I
haven't been charting the reboots) it dies; it appears to be up but
connections to it just stop. It only comes up on restart (although I
haven't gone down to the colocation to try ifdown/ifup on the network
card.)

Computer specifics:
==
uname -a provides:
Linux C9.(domain) 2.4.20 #2 SMP Tue Sep 7 20:47:48 PDT 2004 x86_64
x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
==
contents of /proc/interrupts
[root at C9 root]# cat /proc/interrupts
           CPU0       CPU1
  0:   32861974          0    IO-APIC-edge  timer
  1:          3          0    IO-APIC-edge  keyboard
  2:          0          0          XT-PIC  cascade
  9:          0          0    IO-APIC-edge  acpi
 14:  169538657          0    IO-APIC-edge  ide0
 15:         67          0    IO-APIC-edge  ide1
 17:   41219248          0   IO-APIC-level  eth0
NMI:    3528155    1091288
LOC:   32861089   32861082
ERR:          0
MIS:          0



Error in /var/log/messages
==
Oct 22 16:46:35 C9 kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
Oct 22 16:46:35 C9 kernel: eth0: transmit timed out, tx_status 00 status
e681.
Oct 22 16:46:35 C9 kernel: diagnostics: net 0cd8 media 8880 dma
0000003a.
Oct 22 16:46:35 C9 kernel: eth0: Interrupt posted but not delivered --
IRQ blocked by another device?
Oct 22 16:46:35 C9 kernel: Flags; bus-master 1, dirty 36718564(4)
current 36718564(4)
Oct 22 16:46:35 C9 kernel: Transmit list 00000000 vs. 000001000043b300.
Oct 22 16:46:35 C9 kernel: 0: @000001000043b200 length 80000053 status
00010053
Oct 22 16:46:35 C9 kernel: 1: @000001000043b240 length 80000056 status
00010056
Oct 22 16:46:35 C9 kernel: 2: @000001000043b280 length 80000056 status
80010056
.
.(snippage, it's more of the same.. )
. 
Oct 22 16:46:35 C9 kernel: 15: @000001000043b5c0 length 80000061 status
00010061
==


It looks to me like a problem with the driver for the ethernet card. But
I've always liked 3com cards, and thought they were pretty reliable.
One result of googling the error looks like an answer might lie in using
lilo's -noapic flag, but I don't know what the ramifications on a dns /
web server would be.  

All the drivers are loaded into the kernel; no modules are present in a
lsmod.

Any suggestions? More ideas on how to solve this issue?

Thanks.
Russ




More information about the PLUG mailing list