Integrated Broadcom nic on Dell times out with dhcp
I have a new Dell Dimension 2400 with an integrated Broadcom BCM4401
100Base-T nic.
When I first installed Woody on it, with a 2.4.18-bf kernel, the nic was
not recognized.
When I upgraded the kernel to a stock 2.4.22-1-686 kernel, the nic
worked. Later, for other reasons, I needed to compile my own kernel. I
copied over the .config file and recompiled a new 2.4.22 kernel. The nic
stopped getting a dhcp address, and if I put in a static address, the
network was unreachable.
So I changed back to the stock kernel, and the problem remained.
After a while I discovered that if I power off the computer and unplug
it from the AC mains for a few seconds, I can then restart the machine
and get a DHCP address, but the network remains broken with errors such as:
b44: eth0: Link is down
b44: eth0: Link is up at 10 Mbps, half duplex.
b44: eth0: Flow control is off for TX and off for RX.
and then the network traffic just dies. A ping just sits there until I
ctrl-c it, at which time I don't even get the normal x % packets lost
type messages.
If I reconfigure the nic for static and restart the network (but not the
computer), the network remains dead. I can then reconfigure for dhcp,
and restart the network, and never get a new dchp address. It's like the
nic has gone off to spend the weekend in the Bahamas.
If I reconfigure the nic for static and then restart the whole computer
(with a power off), the network comes back up and I can use the machine,
as long as I don't stop the network for any reason. If I do stop the
network, the nic goes back on vacation until the next power cycling.
It "feels" like the driver is failing to reset something in the nic, or
the nic is failing to accept a reset command, but not being a
programmer, that's just shooting from the hip.
I installed the nictools-pci package, but don't find anything of use for
the Broadcom. I also installed mii-diag, but it reports that everything
is dandy:
Using the default interface 'eth0'.
Basic registers of MII PHY #1: 1000 782d 0040 6360 0de1 0021 0004 2001.
Basic mode control register 0x1000: Auto-negotiation enabled.
You have link beat, and everything is working OK.
Your link partner is generating 10baseT link beat (no autonegotiation).
End of basic transceiver information.
Any clues would be appreciated.
--
Kent
--
Kent West (westk@acu.edu)
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