# NIC Marvell Yukon not working on X2 with 4GB Ram

## fangorn

Hi,

I have set up a machine with a Athlon 64 X2 2200MHz with 4 GB RAM. I used a working configuration of a similar machine (same Board, same box, two differences: Single core Athlon 64 2200 MHz, 2GB RAM), never had network problems with the older machine!

If I use the sk98lin kernel module I get hardware errors and the system hangs some seconds later. If I use 

```

modprobe skge

ping <some_box> 

dmesg 

```

it gives me 

```

 ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:0a.0[A] -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 201

skge addr 0xfac00000 irq 201 chip Yukon-Lite rev 9

skge eth0: addr 00:11:d8:bf:7c:53

skge eth0: enabling interface

skge eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, half duplex, flow control none

skge hardware error detected (status 0xc00)

skge hardware error detected (status 0xc00)

skge IRQ status c00: still set ignoring hardware errors

eth0: no IPv6 routers present

```

the hardware error appears after the ping, so the driver initialises the nic, but as soon as it gets utilized, it produces errors.

This is the same for kernel gentoo-sources-2.6.11-r11 and vanilla-sources-2.6.13, no networking in 2005.1 minimal installation disk, knoppix 4.0, so I think they have the same problem.

I still use the old kernel config -> no smp is enabled -> only one core should be used.

My guess would be, that it has something to the with the 4 GB of memory and the memory remapping. My BIOS has two options for memory remapping, one "Software" and one "Hardware". So far I toggled the "Hardware" switch with no result.

```

>>lspci

..

0000:00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Yukon Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Adapter (rev 13)

..

>>lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by

skge                   39120  0 

ipv6                  261824  8 

serport                 5184  0 

nvidia               4384776  0 

```

If I remove 2 GB of RAM I think it should work, but that would be a rather expensive solution.

I'd be very thankful for any suggestion (besides removing just 1 GB of RAM  :Twisted Evil:  )

Thanks in advance

fangorn

----------

## evster

Since I don't have 4 gig of ram I cannot test this solution.  But did you enable high memory support in your kernel?

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## fangorn

I did not find the setting in my kernel config. So I suspect its the default for amd64.

But I found another setting in the PCI section that concerns memory mapping. It's 

Bus Options (PCI etc)/Unordered IO mapping access

It's labeled "Still very experimental"

Anyone has experience with this?Last edited by fangorn on Thu Sep 01, 2005 6:11 am; edited 1 time in total

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## newtonian

 *fangorn wrote:*   

> Hi,
> 
> My guess would be, that it has something to the with the 4 GB of memory and the memory remapping. My BIOS has two options for memory remapping, one "Software" and one "Hardware". So far I toggled the "Hardware" switch with no result.
> 
> [code]
> ...

 

Here's the card I use with 2GB ram:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> 0000:04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 17)
> 
> 

 

I have a hard time getting it to run unless I use the patch from the Marvel website.

I'd download the patch, patch the 2.6.13 kernel, run menuconfig, select the new driver, build, copy to /boot and reboot.

BTW I'm using the Linux mammoth 2.6.12-gentoo-r6  kernel.

Cheers,

----------

## fangorn

As I said before I use the same nic in the same box with 2 GB of ram without any problem on the network (gentoo-sources-2.6.11-r11, sk98lin), but I will try that too.

----------

## newtonian

 *fangorn wrote:*   

> As I said before I use the same nic in the same box with 2 GB of ram without any problem on the network (gentoo-sources-2.6.11-r11, sk98lin), but I will try that too.

 

Curious, before you patch the kernel.  

If you physically remove all the ram but a gigabyte and reboot, does it work?

I know it works on the other machine, but trying this will eliminate one more variable in the puzzle.

Cheers,

----------

## fangorn

I found a more or less good solution. I removed memory mapping from the BIOS and the NIC works like a charm. This way I can access 3,5 GB of RAM, which is much better than just 2 GB.  :Rolling Eyes: 

Got it running with 2 cores and 3,5 GB RAM, 750 GB HDD  :Cool: 

Since this machine is at work and I'm not payed to be an administrator  :Wink:  I will leave it this way, till I find the time to look any deeper into this.

Thanks again for the responses.

fangorn

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## MrUlterior

I use the same card in a similar amd64 machine - I didn't have crashes but encountered serious performance problems (gigabit operating at < 10mbit) - I read somewhere that the sk98lin driver is deprecated in favour of the skge driver (part of kernel) -- I suggest you compile that module & try with that; I had much better luck with it.

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## fangorn

As told in the first post I got only errors from the sk98lin so I was with the skge module all the time  :Rolling Eyes: 

----------

## HeXiLeD

check  to see if helps :

Marvel/ Yukon / Marvell 88E8053 Driver network problems : SOLVED

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-370968-highlight-.html?sid=9a459230a451474f82792a53c224a84c

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## fangorn

I will try the external driver module, but I don't have your problematic xxxxx53 (rev 15) nic, I have a plain old PCI (rev13) nic.

----------

