Bug#419475: linux-image-2.6.18-4-k7: erroneous behaviour of Realtek 8139, network practically unusable

[David Garabana Barro <dgb97@yahoo.com>]

Package: linux-image-2.6.18-4-k7
Version: 2.6.18.dfsg.1-12
Severity: important


After upgrading this machine from sarge to etch, network card started to do strange things.

Net card is correctly detected and initialized, but it doesn't works as expected.
I can, for example, remotely connect by ssh to machine. But when I try to scp something, connection times out.
I can open www.google.com, but not www.yahoo.com (I suppose problem is the size of data to transfer). Even an apt-get upgrade times out after downloading some headers.

I have tried to downgrade kernel (vanilla kernel, without debian patches, but with the same options as 2.6.18-4 debian kernel when possible), 
and the problem seems to appear in 2.6.17. 2.6.16.46 works with no problem. 2.6.17 suffers from the same problem than etch's kernel.

I have tried 2.6.18-4-486 too, and the problem persists.

I have passed the following options to kernel, with no success at all:

irqpoll
pci=biosirq
pci=routeirq
acpi=off

I've added the following lines to /etc/sysctl.conf, with no success too (I found them in an old kernel bug report):

# No longer needed, fixed by lines below
#net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling=0

# Fix for tcp window scaling issue related to broken Internet routers
proc.sys.net.ipv4.tcp_wmem="4096 16384 131072"
proc.sys.net.ipv4.tcp_rmem="4096 87380 174760"

# Default Debian values for these, still causing problems as of 2.6.18-3
#proc.sys.net.ipv4.tcp_wmem="4096    16384   4194304"
#proc.sys.net.ipv4.tcp_rmem="4096    87380   4194304"

I'm at my very end.

This is the output of lspci for both cards (mainboard internal, and PCI):

01:09.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
        Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RT8139
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 201
        I/O ports at 8400 [size=256]
        Memory at e6000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

01:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
        Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology GA-7VM400M/7VT600 Motherboard
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 193
        I/O ports at 8800 [size=256]
        Memory at e6001000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

Mainboard is a Gigabyte 7N400SL, with the latest BIOS installed.

Please, feel free to query any other information needed.

P.S. I have booted with 2.6.16.46-1-k7, because with debian's kernel I cannot send this report :)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.16.46-1-k7
Locale: LANG=es_ES@euro, LC_CTYPE=es_ES@euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15) (ignored: LC_ALL set to es_ES@euro)

Versions of packages linux-image-2.6.18-4-k7 depends on:
ii  coreutils                     5.97-5.3   The GNU core utilities
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.5.11     Debian configuration management sy
ii  initramfs-tools [linux-initra 0.85g      tools for generating an initramfs
ii  module-init-tools             3.3-pre4-2 tools for managing Linux kernel mo

Versions of packages linux-image-2.6.18-4-k7 recommends:
ii  libc6-i686                  2.3.6.ds1-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries [i

-- debconf-show failed