# r8169 realtek dying?

## albright

Suddenly my netork has become highly unreliable and /var/log/messages has lots

of these:

```

r8169 0000:06:00.0: eth0: link down

r8169 0000:06:00.0: eth0: link up

r8169 0000:06:00.0: eth0: link down

r8169 0000:06:00.0: eth0: link up

r8169 0000:06:00.0: eth0: link down

r8169 0000:06:00.0: eth0: link up
```

Following some random google advice I tried adding a file, r8169.conf to

/etc/modprobe.d which has the single line:

```
options autoneg off
```

But this has not helped. The network "card" is built into my

motherboard so if it's dying that's not good ... 

Any advice would be very welcome. TIA>

----------

## BradN

If you haven't done anything with the kernel or drivers or network equipment, probably either your port or the remote one is starting to fail.

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## RJARRRPCGP

 *albright wrote:*   

> Suddenly my netork has become highly unreliable and /var/log/messages has lots
> 
> of these:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

Possibly a bad cat. (meow) lol

----------

## albright

a new cable did not fix the problem

Does anyone know where to find the list of all available options

for the r8169 module?. If I try 

```
modprobe r8169 autoneg=off
```

I get an error and the module fails to load ...

----------

## todd93

 *albright wrote:*   

> a new cable did not fix the problem
> 
> Does anyone know where to find the list of all available options
> 
> for the r8169 module?. If I try 
> ...

 

You know I have the exact same problem with the exact same built-in port. when it dies, it is bad, it won't work in Windows or anything, this happened about 2 months ago and I had to send my mb in to Gigabyte, they repaired it and sent it back, only this time, I installed a back-up ethernet card just in case, and sure enough, my built in port has done it again.

Todd

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## albright

sorry to hear your trouble. I have to say that in my case, it was

a bad external wireless router (that was connected via ethernet

to my desktop) that was causing the problem. After replacing the

router, I've had no more trouble ...

----------

## todd93

 *albright wrote:*   

> sorry to hear your trouble. I have to say that in my case, it was
> 
> a bad external wireless router (that was connected via ethernet
> 
> to my desktop) that was causing the problem. After replacing the
> ...

 

actually the weirdest thing has happened, it has actually started working again for me, not sure what the issue was.

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## AngelKnight

 *albright wrote:*   

> a new cable did not fix the problem
> 
> Does anyone know where to find the list of all available options
> 
> for the r8169 module?. If I try 
> ...

 

/sbin/modinfo r8169

----------

## Naib

you sure your card /really/ is an r8169 chipset?

Realtek dropped the ball in using EXACTLY the same PCI number for their r8168 chipset and as such the kernel will load a r8169 driver for a r8168 chipset

it will kinda work BUT will not be great.

I ran into this issue when I upgraded my mobo and was experiencing some god awful lag. 

a lspci should say whether you have an actual r8169 or a r8168 chipset

----------

## doctork

 *Naib wrote:*   

> you sure your card /really/ is an r8169 chipset?
> 
> Realtek dropped the ball in using EXACTLY the same PCI number for their r8168 chipset and as such the kernel will load a r8169 driver for a r8168 chipset
> 
> it will kinda work BUT will not be great.
> ...

 

Really?  I have one system with an onboard 8168 and another with a serparate 8269-based pci card.  Both use the r8169 driver and both have worked quite well for a couple of years.  

--

doc

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## albright

 *Quote:*   

> r8168

 

In fact, I have an r8168

```
Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
```

but since I replaced the router I've had no further errors.

But what kernel driver would you suggest for the r8168 - I'll give it a try just for fun.

Also, here is the (to me completely cryptic) output of modinfo

```
# modinfo r8169

filename:       /lib/modules/2.6.35-zen2/kernel/drivers/net/r8169.ko

version:        2.3LK-NAPI

license:        GPL

description:    RealTek RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver

author:         Realtek and the Linux r8169 crew <netdev@vger.kernel.org>

srcversion:     A028CB6937A49B7B8235F29

alias:          pci:v00000001d00008168sv*sd00002410bc*sc*i*

alias:          pci:v00001737d00001032sv*sd00000024bc*sc*i*

alias:          pci:v000016ECd00000116sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias:          pci:v00001259d0000C107sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias:          pci:v00001186d00004300sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008169sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008168sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008167sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008136sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008129sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

depends:        

vermagic:       2.6.35-zen2 SMP preempt mod_unload modversions 

parm:           rx_copybreak:Copy breakpoint for copy-only-tiny-frames (int)

parm:           use_dac:Enable PCI DAC. Unsafe on 32 bit PCI slot. (int)

parm:           debug:Debug verbosity level (0=none, ..., 16=all) (int)
```

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## Naib

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=448712

This is the original bug where I found out that a driver exists for it

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/141343

likewise from ubuntu

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=13&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

source for the drivers

I have a half working ebuild for this which I use. ill tidy it up

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## Beju

I have exactly the same problem - network interface goes up and down, but not really that often. However, this is becoming annoying. My chipset is RTL-8169.

EDIT:

I found out that in fact I have two NICs with chipsets: 8169 and 8168B. I wonder what to do now, because with high probability it's impossible to use the driver mentioned above together with the in-kernel r8169. If someone knows a solution for this, please let me know.

----------

