kern/85583: Send errors ("device timeout") with nVidia Ethernet nve(4) in 6.0-BETA3

[Adrian Bocaniciu]

>Number:         85583
>Category:       kern
>Synopsis:       Send errors ("device timeout") with nVidia Ethernet nve(4) in 6.0-BETA3
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       critical
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Thu Sep 01 19:20:14 GMT 2005
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Adrian Bocaniciu
>Release:        FreeBSD/AMD64 6.0-BETA3
>Organization:
>Environment:
Fresh install of FreeBSD/AMD64 6.0-BETA3 on a nForce 4 motherboard
>Description:
Relevant hardware: Asus A8N-SLI Premium motherboard with nForce 4 chipset, Athlon 64 X2 4400+ dual-core processor, 1 Gbyte 128-bit DDR400 memory, Raptor HDD on the first SATA link of the nForce SATA controller.  All other hardware (DVD writer on PATA, TV tuner and the many on-board peripherals) completely idle during test, nVidia video card in text mode.
After installing FreeBSD/AMD64 6.0-BETA3, the nve(4) nVidia Ethernet interface was recognized as expected, unlike in 5.4-RELEASE, which does not have this driver.  Nevertheless, after starting ntpd, which worked correctly in the beginning, and executing a "make update" with cvsup, after about 2/3 of the update the nve driver began to display "device timeout" error messages.  Each error message was counted in Oerrs of "netstat -i" and the errors appeared to correspond with the NTP queries sent by ntpd during the "make update".  After "make update" finished, the messages continued to show up, so the atempts made by ntpd to send queries remained unsuccessful, resulting in "device timeout".  In conclusion, the nve(4) driver is still unusable in 6.0-BETA3, at least when using two AMD64 processors.

>How-To-Repeat:
I expect that any nForce 4 motherboard with an Athlon 64 X2 processor will behave identically.  I do not know if this nve(4) "device timeout on send" bug also appears with single-core processors or also with FreeBSD/i386 6.0-BETA3.
>Fix:
      
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: