Allen Zadr's Journal: [Geek] NIC Nightmare - Requesting Commentary

O.K. - Have you ever run into this...
I have tried three different Linux Kernels, and three different network cards (with two different NIC chipsets), in two different PCI slots - and I have an odd issue where - after a period of heavy network traffic (usually during the heavy network traffic) - the card simply stops sending and receiving network packets. mii-tool doesn't see anything odd - tcpdump doesn't show any killer packets, and ... pulling the ethercable, and plugging it back in will start the traffic again (during which case mii-tool shows the disconnect and reconnect conditions) and traffic continues (unless a timeout intervenes). It might have to do with auto-negotiation being flaky, but across chipsets and cards, something either external or uglier seems to be going on.

Next on my list to try (before buying something) is a different port to the switch*. ... Then a different switch ... Then a new motherboard and cpu combo (as I'll be out of ideas). Of course, I want the new combo anyway... this setup is on a three year old AthlonXP 1.0 GHz motherboard (but almost every other part is brand-new).

I haven't exhausted all of my testing yet, so this Journal is probably pre-mature... I just figured (it's a home system with a terrabyte of - supposed to be networked - disk, and important to me) if anybody has any other ideas (or similar experiences) - I'd be happy to hear them.

* This is probably very obvious to most as a first step, but due to the odd wiring between my switch and where I work on computers, this isn't "easy" -- thus it was much easier to simply swap out spares, reboot, and test again - than to deal with trying to get behind my 200 pound desk (loaded with another 200 pounds of gear**), to the two ports on my wall.

** gear, heh, well honestly a lot of it is gadgets, books and toys - but there are a few fair bits of computer as well.

few things

[nizo]

I would certainly try a new switch and hell, a new ethernet cable too; the switch could be flaking out.

Re:few things

[Allen Zadr]

Luckily, I have another switch that I can plug it into... but if my in-wall wiring is bad ... then I'm totally screwed.

Bet is on

[Philip K Dickhead]

The switch. Maybe port level - possibly the whole thing. You successfully isolated local IP stack and local hardware!

Affirmation

[Allen Zadr]

Thanks for that. I'm pretty sure it's the switch port (I connect 7 computers to this switch, and never have a problem -- although I'd like to recreate the problem on a whole different computer as well before giving up).