[tulip] Problem with smc 1255 card -- netdev watchdog timed o ut

[Donald Becker]

On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 erik.ostlyngen@telelogic.com wrote:

> > > eth0: MII link partner 0000, negotiated 0000.
> > > eth0: No link beat on the MII interface, status 7849.
> ...
> > > eth0: Comet link status 786d partner capability 4081.
> > > eth0: MII link partner 4081, negotiated 0081.
> 
> > Did you have the board plugged in the whole time?
> > What is the link partner?  A 100baseTx repeater, or some other machine?
> 
> My network consists of an i386 linux and an UltraSparc linux connected with
> a crossed patch cable. The sparc station is switched off when the i386 box
> (with the 1255 card) boots.

Did you make the crossover cable?
Is it
   Cat-5 cable?
   Paired correctly?  Are you _certain_?

> When the problem occurs, the sparc station reports "nfs server not
> responding", 
> so it looks like the problem is on the i386 side.

Run 'mii-diag --watch'.
I'm guessing that you will see the transceiver stuggling to maintain
link beat.

> What I've been doing is starting the i386 linux, then boot the sparc from
> net. The 
> sparc mounts the nfs root fine, and begins to run the startup scripts until,
> but 
> usually the network gets slow (almost stops) before the startup completes.

What errors are you seeing in /proc/net/dev?

-- 
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