# MCP55/Forcedeth driver - nvidia ethernet problem

## PaulSorensen

So I have a motherboard that has the nvidia nforce chipset and am using the ethernet on the motherboard.  If I create a high network load on it, say by using a p2p client with something that is popular enough to have lots of network connections then after a while my computer grinds to a halt with the network lights on my hub flashing furiously - and the other computers on my network seem to not be able to communicate until I turn it off.   When I say "grind to a halt", I mean that at first I can do a few things with the interface but it pretty quickly just locks up (the mouse still works, but can't actually do anything other than move around). 

I'm using kernel 2.6.27-gentoo-r1, and none of the logs show any errors at all.  I'm kind of guessing that it's to do with the forcedeth driver since googling brings up various issues, although none of them sound like my problem.

So any ideas of where I should start?

By the way - I only seem to have started to have this problem with the kernel 2.6.26 series, although the problem didn't go away when 2.6.27 came out.

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## paulbiz

Hmm, I have the same/similar, running 2.6.27-r2 (will be r3 after next reboot) and I haven't run into any problems when using bittorrent or anything like that in this or any previous kernel for the last year. Here's what lspci -v shows for mine:

```
00:11.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Ethernet (rev a2)

        Subsystem: ABIT Computer Corp. Device 1c2c

        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 316

        Memory at efffa000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]

        I/O ports at ec00 [size=8]

        Memory at efff9000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]

        Memory at efff8000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]

        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

        Capabilities: [70] MSI-X: Enable- Mask- TabSize=8

        Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask+ 64bit+ Count=1/8 Enable+

        Capabilities: [6c] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed+

        Kernel driver in use: forcedeth

        Kernel modules: forcedeth

00:12.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Ethernet (rev a2)

        Subsystem: ABIT Computer Corp. Device 1c2c

        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21

        Memory at efff7000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]

        I/O ports at eb00 [size=8]

        Memory at efff6000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]

        Memory at efff5000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]

        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

        Capabilities: [70] MSI-X: Enable- Mask- TabSize=8

        Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask+ 64bit+ Count=1/8 Enable-

        Capabilities: [6c] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed+

        Kernel driver in use: forcedeth

        Kernel modules: forcedeth

```

let me know if you want any other info from here.

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## Icer

Thanks for the info that the kernel version 2.6.26 is buggy. I jumped straight to 2.6.27 from 2.6.25 and I have had problems with the onboard NIC since. I experience quite a rapid slowing down of performance and the network traffic cuts off when the NIC is having problems. When I look at /var/log/messages I see this kind of output from the NIC:

```
Feb 10 22:55:12 mythic nv_stop_tx: TransmitterStatus remained busy<6>eth0: link up.

Feb 10 22:55:12 mythic nv_stop_tx: TransmitterStatus remained busy<6>eth0: link down.

Feb 10 22:55:14 mythic nv_stop_tx: TransmitterStatus remained busy<6>eth0: link up.

Feb 10 22:55:14 mythic nv_stop_tx: TransmitterStatus remained busy<6>eth0: link down.

Feb 10 22:55:17 mythic nv_stop_tx: TransmitterStatus remained busy<6>eth0: link up.

Feb 10 22:55:17 mythic nv_stop_tx: TransmitterStatus remained busy<6>eth0: link down.

Feb 10 22:55:19 mythic nv_stop_tx: TransmitterStatus remained busy<6>eth0: link up.

Feb 10 22:55:19 mythic nv_stop_tx: TransmitterStatus remained busy<6>eth0: link down.

Feb 10 22:55:20 mythic nv_stop_tx: TransmitterStatus remained busy<6>eth0: link up.

Feb 10 22:55:20 mythic nv_stop_tx: TransmitterStatus remained busy<6>eth0: link down.

Feb 10 22:55:22 mythic nv_stop_tx: TransmitterStatus remained busy<6>eth0: link up.

```

Now I'm considering wether to file a bug or not because when I search for those lines with google I see that a fix has been applied long time ago. Anyway meanwhile I am downgrading to 2.6.25 kernel to see if it helps. I can fix that problem temporarily if I power down PC or run the ethernet interface down. But for now I'm just going to wait for a permanent fix.

Oops... downgrading to 2.6.25 did not help. I have now faster connection so looks like the embedded ethernet controller cannot cope with the increased load. I think I need to go look for external NIC.  :Sad: 

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## Icer

Found out that the ethernet port was running half duplex. I added 3com card and that too was running half duplex. So I tried ethtool to change to full duplex. I have to disable the autonegotiation before it works. Anyway I got the port at full duplex using this command:

```
ethtool  -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full autoneg off
```

Now I'm not sure if those settings are going to survive over boot. Also not sure if it helps with the PC hanging but I think I'll see it soon enough if it helps.

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