[eepro100] eepro100 problems: kernel 2.4.16 new VM: no resources, can't fill rx buffer

[Michael Wilson]

Dear eepro100 community,

I am experiencing errors with the eepro100 driver and kernel 2.4.16.

The machines are HP x4000 workstations.  Here is the output from
the driver on bootup as reported by dmesg:

eepro100.c:v1.09j-t 9/29/99 Donald Becker http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/eepro100.html
eepro100.c: $Revision: 1.36 $ 2000/11/17 Modified by Andrey V. Savochkin <saw@saw.sw.com.sg> and others
eth0: OEM i82557/i82558 10/100 Ethernet, 00:E0:81:00:2D:E0, IRQ 21.
  Board assembly 000000-000, Physical connectors present: RJ45
  Primary interface chip i82555 PHY #1.
    Secondary interface chip i82555.
  General self-test: passed.
  Serial sub-system self-test: passed.
  Internal registers self-test: passed.
  ROM checksum self-test: passed (0x3258698e).

Here is the output of lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82850 860 (Wombat) Chipset Host Bridge (MCH) (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82850 850 (Tehama) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82860 860 (Wombat) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82820 820 (Camino 2) Chipset PCI (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82820 820 (Camino 2) Chipset ISA Bridge (ICH2) (rev 04)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82820 820 (Camino 2) Chipset IDE U100 (rev 04)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82820 820 (Camino 2) Chipset USB (Hub A) (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82820 820 (Camino 2) Chipset SMBus (rev 04)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2445 (rev 04)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G400 AGP (rev 85)
02:1f.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82806AA PCI64 Hub PCI Bridge (rev 03)
03:00.0 PIC: Intel Corporation 82806AA PCI64 Hub Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (rev 01)
03:08.0 SCSI storage controller: Symbios Logic Inc. (formerly NCR) 53c1010 66Mhz Ultra3 SCSI Adapter (rev 01)
03:08.1 SCSI storage controller: Symbios Logic Inc. (formerly NCR) 53c1010 66Mhz Ultra3 SCSI Adapter (rev 01)
04:0d.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82557 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 0c)


Here are the errors we are getting:

Dec  3 13:49:13 conslnx1 kernel: eth0: can't fill rx buffer (force 0)!
Dec  3 13:49:13 conslnx1 kernel: eth0: can't fill rx buffer (force 1)!
Dec  3 13:49:13 conslnx1 kernel: eth0: can't fill rx buffer (force 0)!
Dec  3 13:49:13 conslnx1 kernel: eth0: card reports no resources.
Dec  3 13:49:22 conslnx1 kernel: eth0: card reports no resources.
Dec  3 13:49:23 conslnx1 kernel: eth0: card reports no resources.
Dec  3 13:49:23 conslnx1 kernel: eth0: card reports no resources.

At about this point, the box becomes unresponsive (I got a shell on the 
serial console long enough to hit return a couple times, but could not even
issue a reboot command after that).


I have seen this question asked before, and the response was that this was
brought about my a low-memory condition.  The advice was to adjust 
/proc/sys/vm/freepages, for example:

echo "1024 2048 4096" > /proc/sys/vm/freepages


Now that there is a new VM in the kernel, "freepages" is gone.  The notion
here is that this tuning is done inside the kernel, and that the need for
the "freepages" variable is deprecated.  Unfortunately, this problem involving
the eepro100 driver persists, and without the "freepages" interface, I'm out
of luck.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

I would also be appreciative of any information or links to updated 
documentation that explains the /proc variables of the new VM.

Note - rolling back to a kernel with the old VM is not a good option for us, 
since these machines have 2gb of RAM and the old VM would lock up for a 
period of time (proportional to amount of swap we were using) whenever we 
hit swap.  This could be 3-5 minutes in some cases.

Thanks,
mtw

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Michael T. Wilson               |  Phone: (603) 643-2600 (ext. 659)
Systems Administrator		|    FAX: (603) 643-3967
Fluent Inc.                     |  email: mtw@fluent.com  
10 Cavendish Court              |    WWW: http://www.fluent.com
Lebanon, NH 03766 U.S.A.        |
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