[vortex] Connectivity Takes a Break

[Donald Becker]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Montee, Josh wrote:

> problem where for no apparent reason (incidences do not seem to be
> correlated), the connectivity of our Linux machines seems to 'take a break'
> so to speak.  Sometimes its just a few moments, sometimes a few minutes,
> sometimes upwards of 10+ minutes where I'm forced to reboot the servers.
...
> 3c59x.c:v0.99Qk 7/5/2000 Donald Becker, becker@scyld.com
>   http://www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
> eth0: 3Com 3c905B Cyclone 100baseTx at 0xd800,  00:50:da:d6:74:18, IRQ 9
>   8K byte-wide RAM 5:3 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/Autonegotiate interface.
>   MII transceiver found at address 24, status 786d.
...
> eth1: 3Com 3c905B Cyclone 100baseTx at 0xd400,  00:50:da:2e:1a:f3, IRQ 10
>   8K byte-wide RAM 5:3 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/Autonegotiate interface.
>   MII transceiver found at address 24, status 786d.
...
> eth1: Setting half-duplex based on MII #24 link partner capability of 4081.

OK, so you have a half-duplex connection with a repeater that only does
100baseTx half duplex.

> eth1: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.

Read
  http://www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html#txerrs
 
0x82 
     Out of window collision. This typically occurs when some other
     Ethernet host is incorrectly set to full duplex on a half duplex 
     network.

So you have another host with a bogus configuration.  It takes a while
to recover from this transmit error.

> eth1: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
> eth1: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
> ...
> ...  I got this error 34 times, shortened for your convenience
> ...
> eth1: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
> eth1: Setting full-duplex based on MII #24 link partner capability of 4101.

Huh?  You now have renegotiated to full duplex, with a switch that only
advertises 100baseTx-FDX!  

What is your actual connection?
You might need to use 'mii-diag'
  http://www.scyld.com/diag/index.html

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