sk0: watchdog timeout

[Hans Nieser]

A long, long time ago Vladimir Dvorak wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I have a problem with network card. From time to time kernel says
> 
> sk0: watchdog timeout

I just ran into the same issue. I have an ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe in my
desktop machine which runs FreeBSD 6.0+Xorg+Gnome. It has two on-board
NICs, the nvidia one and a Marvel one. The nvidia was one big disaster and
was giving me device timeouts so I never bothered with that one again.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
skc0: <Marvell Gigabit Ethernet> port 0xac00-0xacff mem
0xd4008000-0xd400bfff irq 17 at device 12.0 on pci5
skc0: Marvell Yukon Lite Gigabit Ethernet rev. (0x9)
sk0: <Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. Yukon> on skc0
sk0: Ethernet address: 00:11:d8:99:3b:b0
miibus0: <MII bus> on sk0
e1000phy0: <Marvell 88E1000 Gigabit PHY> on miibus0
e1000phy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX,
1000baseTX-FDX, auto
---------------------------------------------------------------------
nve0: <NVIDIA nForce MCP9 Networking Adapter> port 0xb000-0xb007 mem
0xd5000000-0xd5000fff irq 22 at device 10.0 on pci0
nve0: Ethernet address 00:11:d8:99:39:be
miibus1: <MII bus> on nve0
ukphy0: <Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface> on miibus1
ukphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT,
1000baseT-FDX, auto
nve0: Ethernet address: 00:11:d8:99:39:be
nve0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
skc0 at pci5:12:0: class=0x020000 card=0x811a1043 chip=0x432011ab rev=0x13
hdr=0x00
     vendor   = 'Marvell Semiconductor (Was: Galileo Technology Ltd)'
     device   = '88E8001/8003/8010 Gigabit Ethernet Controller with
Integrated PHY (copper)'
     class    = network
     subclass = ethernet
---------------------------------------------------------------------
nve0 at pci0:10:0: class=0x068000 card=0x81411043 chip=0x005710de rev=0xa3
hdr=0x00
     vendor   = 'NVIDIA Corporation'
     device   = 'nForce4 Ethernet Controller'
     class    = bridge
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Until now the Marvell one had worked flawlessly for me, until today, when
I was moving 80GB of data to my server. It keeps crapping out with "sk0:
watchdog timeout" and appears to take the whole desktop down with it, apps
become unresponsive and Nautilus basically freezes.

Bringing the interface down and up restores connectivity, unfortunately
Nautilus won't continue copying files (despite it offering a "Retry"
button, it just kept spewing errors) so having to manually figure out what
was and wasn't copied over every 20GB or so is quickly becoming a pain in
the behind.

Looks like some PRs were filed on this issue but I guess they haven't been
able to fix it (yet? - say yes please). It may also be worth noting that
this NIC also lost connectivity in Windows XP from time to time forcing me
to disable/enable it, so maybe the NIC itself is just garbage.