[Samba] conflict between Realtek 8139 (client) and 3c2000T(server) NIC's with Samba?

Malcolm Baldridge google at paypc.com
Wed May 26 08:49:34 GMT 2004


> I *might* be a Realtek issue...  I have heard that Sage (the accounts
> software folk) say that their software will not work properly over a
> network which uses these Realtek cards.

Save yourself far more than the few dollars of false economy and throw away
your Realtek junk.  I had so many "strange" and "seemingly application
level" problems just vanish when I put real 3Com/Intel/etc network cards
into my servers and workstations.

The 8139, 8169, et al... all of them are junk.  I just spent a week
diagnosing a strange packet loss issue with the 8169 (GigE) interface which
only manifested itself under pretty heavy loads in a difficult to reproduce
manner. It occurred often enough to break my application at least twice a
day, but I couldn't get it to fail predictably so I could easily debug it. 

After the usual wasted DAYS of swapping NICs, cables, switches, and even
machines...  I changed to an Intel network card, and all of my problems were
solved.

Do yourself a favour: get rid of that junk.  The math just doesn't work. 
Cost delta of NIC?  Maybe $15-20 tops.  Cost your wasted time?  HUNDREDS of
$$$, at least.

=Malcom=



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