bizar problem with a Dell latitude D600's onboard nic

Philip Keuleers ph.keuleers at pandora.be
Sat Oct 15 08:53:41 PDT 2005


Gerard Seibert wrote:

>On Saturday, October 15, 2005 11:15:26 AM, Philip Keuleers <ph.keuleers at pandora.be>
>Subject: bizar problem with a Dell latitude D600's onboard nic
>Wrote these words of wisdom:
>
>  
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I'm looking for some help with a problem I've been having with a Dell 
>>D600 with a FreeBSD 5.2.1 install. A while ago I started getting network 
>>timeouts. In my message logs I found entries like this:
>>
>>Oct 10 14:35:04 loki kernel: bge0: PHY read timed out
>>Oct 10 14:35:04 loki last message repeated 2 times
>>Oct 10 14:35:09 loki kernel: bge0: watchdog timeout -- resetting
>>Oct 10 14:35:09 loki kernel: bge0: PHY read timed out
>>Oct 10 14:35:09 loki kernel: bge0: PHY read timed out
>>Oct 10 14:35:09 loki kernel: bge0: RX CPU self-diagnostics failed!
>>Oct 10 14:35:09 loki kernel: bge0: flow-through queue init failed
>>Oct 10 14:35:09 loki kernel: bge0: initialization failure
>>Oct 10 14:35:09 loki kernel: bge0: PHY read timed out
>>Oct 10 14:35:14 loki last message repeated 5 times
>>Oct 10 14:35:15 loki su: cz2nhc to root on /dev/ttyv0
>>Oct 10 14:35:19 loki kernel: bge0: PHY read timed out
>>Oct 10 14:35:29 loki last message repeated 7 times
>>Oct 10 14:35:29 loki kernel: bge0: RX CPU self-diagnostics failed!
>>Oct 10 14:35:30 loki kernel: bge0: flow-through queue init failed
>>Oct 10 14:35:30 loki kernel: bge0: initialization failure
>>Oct 10 14:35:30 loki kernel: bge0: PHY read timed out
>>Oct 10 14:36:00 loki last message repeated 20 times
>>
>>Only a reboot managed to get the onboard nic back in working order 
>>again. I suspected hardware problems, called Dell support who couldn't 
>>help me unless I had win XP installed. So I switched disks with a 
>>colleage and lo and behold my bsd-disk in his laptop: no problem, his 
>>disk in my laptop: no problem... Not telling Dell the whole story I 
>>managed to convince them my disk in someone elses laptop worked fine 
>>thus it must be hardware related. They replaced the systemboard and the 
>>laptop worked fine for about a week or two and the same problem came 
>>back... slowly increasing in frequency. At first it would be every few 
>>days (I could live with that) but after a while it was every few hours 
>>(no way I could live with that). Even worse, at one point the nic 
>>wouldn't even show up in dmesg as if it wasn't there.
>>Called Dell again... same blabla.. no XP no help. They insisted I 
>>upgrade my bios ... so I did and everything worked again... for a day 
>>and a half... the nic disappeared again. Tried both a linux and a XP 
>>live cd .. none see the nic. In my messages file I get
>>
>>Oct 14 18:11:02 loki kernel: pccard1: Card has no functions!
>>Oct 14 18:11:02 loki kernel: cbb1: PC Card card activation failed
>>
>>Does anyone have a bright idea of what is happening here? It looks like 
>>a hardware issue to me but since the systemboard has already been 
>>replaced I'll need some good arguments to convince the Dell boys it's 
>>not a FreeBSD issue. Or could it be ?
>>I'll gladly post any logs or output that could help ... just ask :-)
>>
>>In working order the nic is listed in a scanpci as
>>
>>pci bus 0x0002 cardnum 0x00 function 0x00: vendor 0x14e4 device 0x165d
>>Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5705M Gigabit Ethernet
>>
>>pci bus 0x0002 cardnum 0x01 function 0x00: vendor 0x1217 device 0x7113
>>O2 Micro, Inc. Device unknown
>>
>>pci bus 0x0002 cardnum 0x01 function 0x01: vendor 0x1217 device 0x7113
>>O2 Micro, Inc. Device unknown
>>
>>Thanx in advance for your help
>>
>>Greetz,
>>Philip
>>    
>>
>
>
>***** REPLY SEPARATOR *****
>On 10/11/2005 5:29:42 PM, Gerard Replied:
>
>Maybe I am missing something here, but if you switched disks and the
>problem did not resurface, why are you wasting Dell's time swapping out
>hardware? If you are going to buy a computer system and install an OS
>that is not supported by the computer's manufacturer, you have to assume
>all risks and responsibilities involved with that system. All you are
>doing is wasting the time of the tech support people at Dell. They are
>obviously not trained to work systems with non Microsoft OS's.
>
>By the way, 5.2.1 is an old build. Why not try 5.4 instead. It might
>very well rectify your problem.
>
>  
>
I'm aware 5.2.1 is rather old and probably not the best release but it 
worked fine for me on this laptop since it was released. I also tried 
booting from a Freesbie live cd (based on FreeBSD 5.3) with the same 
results.
As for wasting Dell's time... just swapping disks with my collegue was a 
test and at best a workaround, not a solution. On top of that I'm only 
wasting Dell's time if it is proven that FreeBSD is causing the problem 
(wich is actually what I'm trying to determin). If it is hardware it IS 
there problem... besides right now wether I boot it with FreeBSD, Linux 
or XP the problem is there....

anyway, I just wanted to ask a question ... not start a flame war
 
Greetz,
Philip


Q: How many Bill Gates does it take to change a lightbulb ?
A: None, he just defines Darkness™ as the new industry standard...


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