[clug] random ethernet shutdown

Darren Freeman daz111 at rsphysse.anu.edu.au
Fri Oct 17 09:47:48 EST 2003


On Thu, 2003-10-16 at 20:22, Sam Couter wrote:
> Darren Freeman <daz111 at rsphysse.anu.edu.au> wrote:
> > I'm testing my system stability because it kept locking up with the case
> > off.
> 
> Your car would also overheat if you removed the shroud around the fan
> behind the radiator. Most computers rely on the case for decent airflow.
> Your lockups may be caused by overheating, so if the case is still off
> the machine, that's the first thing to do. Second would be to make sure
> that with the case on you're not still overheating.

yeah I'm running it properly at the moment, that's why I got an uptime
of 3 days.

there are two 80GB western digitals in there in the 5.25" bays with a
mass of ribbons in front, I will try swapping for round UDMA cables and
see what happens.

> > Oct 16 13:48:48 host kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
> > Oct 16 13:48:53 host last message repeated 10 times
> > 
> > kept coming up at the same time. When this problem occurs the mouse is
> > unresponsive for about 100ms once every second.
> 
> Sounds like an interrupt storm. Try the other onboard transceiver or
> plug another ethernet card in. Move cards around in slots or play with
> the BIOS to juggle interrupts.

I think the other one isn't supported by Linux 2.4.x yet. I will try
another card (again 3com) but still if it's a faulty mobo I'd like to
fix it before something else goes wrong.

> How busy is the network segment it's plugged into? Reliable switch/hub?

It's talking to a switch/router combo. Packet sniffing wouldn't get me
anywhere so I guess I've got a dedicated link on the switch.

Swapping wall plug did nothing.

Either way a simple:

ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 up
route add default gw www.xxx.yyy.zzz

is all I need to fix it. But when it starts happening once a minute the
server is pretty much hosed ;) It locked up soon afterwards.

I'm still looking into heating but I was hoping to rule out any other
things people might think of since fixing heating problems tends to take
a lot of trial and waiting.

Darren




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