Weird network connection problem

[Donald Becker]

On Tue, 1 Oct 2002, Yudong Tian wrote:

> > >    We've got 200 nodes running,  with each node having a 
> > Biostar MB with a
> > > built-in Realtek 8192
> > > NIC chip, and running RH 7.2, 2.4-17.
> > 
> > Which driver, including version number, are you running?
> 
> To be precise, the kernel is 2.4.7-10, the driver is 
> the default 8139too.o. Do you think I should try 
> rtl8139.c? 

Having a mix of working and non-working systems is usually a case
where we just question the hardware, but it is worth the few minutes to
try the rtl8139 driver:
  mkdir /tmp/netdrivers/
  cd /tmp/netdrivers/
  ncftp ftp://ftp.scyld.com/pub/network/netdrivers.tgz
  tar xfvz netdrivers.tgz
  make
  make install

> > >  Any insight where we should look for the problem: hardware? BIOS?
> > > Driver module? Such a problem does not happen to any nodes
> > > randomly. It only occurs to those 20 or so particular nodes, which are
> > > identical to others except their MAC addrs.
> > 
> > But this does hint at a hardware problem.

-- 
Donald Becker				becker at scyld.com
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Second Generation Beowulf Clusters
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993