[vortex-bug] Problem with 3Com 3C905B 100bTX: (transmit timed out, tx_status 00 status e000)

[Andrew Morton]

Livio Baldini Soares wrote:
> 
> eth0: Tx Ring full, refusing to send buffer.
> eth0: transmit timed out, tx_status 00 status e000.
>   Flags; bus-master 1, full 1; dirty 41474248 current 41474264.

Are you really using 2.2.17, or is it a 2.2.17-pre?

David Hinds and I have done a lot of work on this issue over the last
few weeks and I believe we now have it fully understood and fixed.  But
you'll need 2.2.17 (no prereleases) to pick up the changes.

If you're really using 2.2.17 then that's a bit of a bummer.  This
timeout can still occur, but it's not a driver problem.  You can
genuinely get into a situation where the LAN is so busy the poor old
card can't send a single packet for half a second.  But it recovers
fine.

So.  Please upgrade to 2.2.17 proper, or send the full kernel log
output, along with a description of how frequently this occurs.