RTL8139 difficulties in 2.2, not in 2.4

RTL8139 difficulties in 2.2, not in 2.4

[Matthias Andree]

Hi,

I'm having difficulties with a RTL8139 with Linux 2.2.19 (both drivers),
but not with Linux 2.4.4's 8139too driver. The card is an Allied Telesyn
AT-2500TX, the chip is reported as 8139C/rev. 0x10. The card shares its
IRQ 9 with an nVidia Riva TNT 128 [NV04], rev. 4.

(eth0 is a 3C900 Combo with 10base2 network)

The card is connected to a Siemens DSL modem which Deutsche Telekom AG
provides me with, mii-diag claims that modem refuses auto-negotiation,
the modem officially talks 10BaseT, not sure if half or full duplex.

This is the 8139/8129 driver of 2.2.19 speaking (note updating that to
the scyld.com v1.13 driver doesn't help):

eth1: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xbc00, IRQ 9, [MAC NOT SHOWN]
...
eth1: Transmit timeout, status 0d 0004 media 18.
eth1: Tx queue start entry 44  dirty entry 40.
eth1:  Tx descriptor 0 is 9008a06e. (queue head)
eth1:  Tx descriptor 1 is 9008a06e.
eth1:  Tx descriptor 2 is 9008a06e.
eth1:  Tx descriptor 3 is 9008a06e.
eth1: MII #32 registers are: 1000 782d 0000 0000 01e1 0000 0000 0000.
...
eth1: Tx queue start entry 4  dirty entry 0.
eth1: Transmit timeout, status 0c 0005 media 18.
eth1: Tx queue start entry 4  dirty entry 0.
eth1: Transmit timeout, status 0c 0005 media 18.
eth1: Tx queue start entry 4  dirty entry 0.
eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 5.
eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 5.
eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 4.
eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 4.
(continues every minute with status 4 if no traffic on interface)

The 8139too driver with 2.2.19 reports this:

eth1: Setting half-duplex based on auto-negotiated partner ability 0000.
eth1: Tx queue start entry 44  dirty entry 40.
eth1:  Tx descriptor 0 is 00002000. (queue head)
eth1:  Tx descriptor 1 is 00002000.
eth1:  Tx descriptor 2 is 00002000.
eth1:  Tx descriptor 3 is 00002000.
eth1: Setting half-duplex based on auto-negotiated partner ability 0000.

no mentionings about 8139 IRQ difficulties with 8139too.

There has been a similar report in the German-language
t-online.zugang.adsl newsgroup.

2.4.4 only has the "Setting half-duplex" log entry, no more eth1 log
entries, and is working properly.


Here's a diff from the rtl8139-diag v1.01 output, from 2.2 to 2.4:

--- 8139-2.2	Sat May 19 11:01:20 2001
+++ 8139-2.4	Sat May 19 12:28:24 2001
@@ -1,12 +1,12 @@
 rtl8139-diag.c:v1.01 4/30/99 Donald Becker (becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov)
 Index #1: Found a RealTek RTL8139 adapter at 0xbc00.
 RealTek chip registers at 0xbc00
- 0x000: 3d843000 0000c29c 80000000 00000000 9008a0f8 9008a0c6 9008a0c6 9008a0fe
- 0x020: 0732a000 0732a600 0732ac00 0732b200 07300000 0d0a0000 00cc00bc 0000c07f
- 0x040: 74000400 00009c0e d5a60770 00000000 002c10c6 00000000 008cc118 00100000
+ 0x000: 3d843000 0000c29c 00000000 00000000 9008a03c 9008a03e 9008a03c 9008a062
+ 0x020: 038f2000 038f2600 038f2c00 038f3200 06a30000 0d0a0000 41b441a4 0000c07f
+ 0x040: 74000600 0200f78a c5903fe1 00000000 000d10c6 00000000 0088d118 00100000
  0x060: 1000f00f 01e1782d 00000000 00000000 00000005 000f77c0 b0f243b9 7a36d743.
   No interrupt sources are pending.
- The chip configuration is 0x10 0x2c, MII half-duplex mode.
+ The chip configuration is 0x10 0x0d, MII half-duplex mode.
 Parsing the EEPROM of a RealTek chip:
   PCI IDs -- Vendor 0x10ec, Device 0x8139, Subsystem 0x1259.
   PCI timer settings -- minimum grant 32, maximum latency 64.

Can someone help?

-- 
Matthias Andree

Re: RTL8139 difficulties in 2.2, not in 2.4

[Donald Becker]

On Sat, 19 May 2001, Matthias Andree wrote:

> I'm having difficulties with a RTL8139 with Linux 2.2.19 (both drivers),
> but not with Linux 2.4.4's 8139too driver. The card is an Allied Telesyn
> AT-2500TX, the chip is reported as 8139C/rev. 0x10. The card shares its
> IRQ 9 with an nVidia Riva TNT 128 [NV04], rev. 4.
...
> eth1: Transmit timeout, status 0c 0005 media 18.
> eth1: Tx queue start entry 4  dirty entry 0.
> eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 5.
> eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 5.
> eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 4.
> eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 4.
> (continues every minute with status 4 if no traffic on interface)

The card is reporting that the interrupt line has been asserted (Tx
done), but the interrupt handler hasn't been called.

You can verify this by watching the interrupt count in /proc/interrupts.

Try booting the kernel with "noapic", which we recommend as the safe
default setting.


Donald Becker				becker@scyld.com
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Second Generation Beowulf Clusters
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993

Re: RTL8139 difficulties in 2.2, not in 2.4

[Matthias Andree]

On Sat, 19 May 2001, Donald Becker wrote:

> > eth1: Transmit timeout, status 0c 0005 media 18.
> > eth1: Tx queue start entry 4  dirty entry 0.
> > eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 5.
> > eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 5.
> > eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 4.
> > eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 4.
> > (continues every minute with status 4 if no traffic on interface)
> 
> The card is reporting that the interrupt line has been asserted (Tx
> done), but the interrupt handler hasn't been called.
> 
> You can verify this by watching the interrupt count in /proc/interrupts.
> 
> Try booting the kernel with "noapic", which we recommend as the safe
> default setting.

Sorry, this didn't work out. I still get Tx descriptor dumps, and these:

eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 5.
eth1: Transmit timeout, status 0c 0005 media 18.
eth1: Tx queue start entry 8  dirty entry 4, full.
eth1:  Tx descriptor 0 is 9008a03c. (queue head)
eth1:  Tx descriptor 1 is 9008a03c.
eth1:  Tx descriptor 2 is 9008a03c.
eth1:  Tx descriptor 3 is 9008a03c.
eth1: MII #32 registers are: 1000 782d 0000 0000 01e1 0000 0000 0000.
eth1: RTL8139 Interrupt line blocked, status 5.

/proc/interrupt looks like this:
           CPU0       
  0:      37029          XT-PIC  timer
  1:       1049          XT-PIC  keyboard
  2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade
  4:       1955          XT-PIC  serial
  5:        173          XT-PIC  ide2, eth0
  8:          1          XT-PIC  rtc
  9:          0          XT-PIC  eth1
 10:       1323          XT-PIC  serial
 11:         41          XT-PIC  sym53c8xx, es1371
 13:          1          XT-PIC  fpu
 14:      14947          XT-PIC  ide0
NMI:          0

So, yes, it looks as if there had not been a single eth1 IRQ. But why
does 2.4 get it right, then, even without special boot options?

-- 
Matthias Andree

Re: RTL8139 difficulties in 2.2, not in 2.4

[Matthias Andree]

On Sun, 20 May 2001, Matthias Andree wrote:

> > > eth1: Transmit timeout, status 0c 0005 media 18.

It looks like I found a workaround which may help you debugging, if new
questions arise, please ask. Willing to help so this issue can be
resolved for Linux 2.2.20.

1. I'm compiling my eth drivers as modules.

2. I alias eth0 to 3c59x and eth1 to either 8139too or rtl8139 (doesn't
matter); my rtl8139 is the current version 1.13 from scyld.com

3. after X has come up, I issue "ifconfig eth1 down; rmmod rtl8139" (or
8139too, depending on what modules.conf says)

4. I do "ifconfig eth1 up" (pppoe with Deutsche Telekom AG doesn't
require IP, just raw ethernet)

5. I launch pppd which runs pppoe, the problems are gone.

I haven't yet checked if after this procedure, 3D graphics work out, I
don't have current NVidia drivers here, just plain XFree 4.0.3 as
packaged by SuSE.

also in 2.4: RTL8139 difficulties in 2.2, not in 2.4

[Matthias Andree]

On Sat, 19 May 2001, I wrote:

> I'm having difficulties with a RTL8139 with Linux 2.2.19 (both drivers),
> but not with Linux 2.4.4's 8139too driver. The card is an Allied Telesyn
> AT-2500TX, the chip is reported as 8139C/rev. 0x10. The card shares its
> IRQ 9 with an nVidia Riva TNT 128 [NV04], rev. 4.

These diffculties also occasionally hit 2.4.4, so there must be some
different aspect causing these troubles.