# Big downloads stall: Nic broke or software problem?

## Kiff

Someone on IRC pointed me to a home-made mix today and this was the first "big" download i had to make since installing gentoo. (mix was about 100Megs)

first tried downloading it with mozilla, that one stalled after about 5Mb the first time and 15Mb the second time)

after some advice i tried it with wget... but nothing works... keeps on stalling

Someone told me there could be 2 reasons:

1. My nic is broke (seems unlikely, works fine in Win)

2. My kernel driver is somehow not good (working with the via-rhine module, compiled into the kernel)

Anyone got a better idea, or perhaps a solution?

----------

## rac

From Desktop Environments to Networking & Security, needs assistance with network task.

----------

## pjp

What make/model is your NIC?

----------

## delta407

...and kernel version, while you're at it.

----------

## steblublu

 *Kiff wrote:*   

> 
> 
> first tried downloading it with mozilla, that one stalled after about 5Mb the first time and 15Mb the second time)
> 
> after some advice i tried it with wget... but nothing works... keeps on stalling
> ...

 

I suspect that the download hasnt really stalled.  just that it is reporting that it is.  

Many times when I transfer large files on my network, KDE's Konquerer will say the download/transfer is stalled when in fact it isnt.  I notice this happpening often using samba as well.

As the file is actually being transfered, i do not mind the false status.  I just wait for it to complete.

I suggest you try to give it some time, and see if you experience the same thing.

----------

## Kiff

Yes... gave it lots of time, but even gkrellm reports no activity.

NIC = D-Link DFE-530 (100Mb)

kernel = 2.4.19-gentoo  (default i guess)

----------

## billk

I have a similar problem.  rtl8039 card works fine, but an old 3com card on eth1 keeps stalling when doing a rsync (unison)  backup of a laptop (~9gbytes).  Untill I get time to do some research, I am using:

lt() { date; while [ 1 ]; do date; ifconfig eth1 down; sleep 1; ifconfig eth1 up; sleep 180; done; }

cut and paste the above into your root shell (bash or zsh), then running "lt" will reset the ethernet card every 3 mins.  I am now running for the first time for a period longer than 10 minutes!  You may need to adjust the timout to suit.

No substitute for a real fix of course!

BillK

----------

## echto

I was experiencing a stall on my network and it ended up being a western digital harddrive sharing the same IDE cable with my Maxtor 16 gig.  The data transfer rates will drop to the slowest device on a shared channel.  I was going nutz trying to figure out what was going on.

----------

