Re: NetXtreme BCM5722 strangeness on Proliant ML115
On Fri, 06 Jul 2012 09:46:33 +0100, Berni Elbourn wrote:
> 11:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5722
> Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
>
> With standard squeeze kernel seemingly once a day this nic stops
> working. Looking at the switch port it seems the nic is transmitting (or
> retransmitting) something as fast as possible. A simple ifdown/ifup
> seems to cure for another day.
>
> On latest backport kernel 3.2.20-1~bpo60+1 (installed today) the nic
> does seems to be stable. iperf reports 1gb performance. However the
> count of dropped packets is slowly growing:
(...)
> RX packets:8801144 errors:0 dropped:1824 overruns:0 frame:0
(...)
> This issue is present in the firmware nonfree from stable, and
> backports, and the using the latest source compiled from broadcom
> 3.122n. I have changed cables and switch ports. There is another other
> gigabit nic on the switch is nVidia Corporation MCP77 and this has no
> errors or dropped packets.
So you have tested with almost all of the possibilities (you've discarded
a hardware issue by replacing the patch cord and using a different switch
port and you've discarded a software/driver problem by installing a
different kernel and the latest available broadcom driver) yet still you
don't see a noticeable improvement on this, right? Then it can be
something specific to your setup/environment... I would start with the
ouput of "ethtool eth0" and "ethtool -k eth0" just in case.
Have you noted an increment of packets being dropped when the system is
running a concrete task or process that can exhaust the available memory?
I ask this because Google suggest that dropped packates can be related to
low memory situations :-?
> Anyone else seeing this? How to progress? .. should I log a debian bug,
> or just go buy an Intel card? Or ? :-)
In workstations and servers I always try to have at least a couple of
different NIC cards (from different manufacturers and models) just to
prevent these situations, because if you think about it, what's a server
with no network connection? Nowadays, close to nothing; a toaster is even
more useful :-)
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
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