bizar problem with a Dell latitude D600's onboard nic

Alan Gerber agerber at ncsu.edu
Sat Oct 15 11:27:13 PDT 2005


Gerard Seibert wrote:

>On Saturday, October 15, 2005 11:51:26 AM, Philip Keuleers <ph.keuleers at pandora.be>
>Subject: Re: bizar problem with a Dell latitude D600's onboard nic
>Wrote these words of wisdom:
>
>  
>
>>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
>>
>>    
>>
>
>***** REPLY SEPARATOR *****
>On 10/11/2005 5:29:42 PM, Gerard Replied:
>
>I am sorry, perhaps I am not fully comprehending your post. I thought
>you meant that after you swapped disks, the problems subsided.
>
>//quote//
>
>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...
>
>//end quote//
>
>I assumed that the problem stopped. Technically, if it is a hardware
>problem, and that does not seem to be true at this point, it is not
>Dell's problem if you are using an OS other than what they certified the
>machine to be compatible with.
>
>Example:
>
>I had an old Compaq 5140 machine that had no problems with ACPI under
>Windows, but failed to utilize that function under FreeBSD. There was
>no way I could get Compaq to correct the situation since they never
>certified the machine to work with anything other than Windows.
>
>Anyway, I hope you can bring this situation to a satisfactory conclusion.
>
>  
>
I've got a D600 that used to have 5.2.1 on it -- I never had any 
troubles with the onboard NIC.

Two points of thought:  what happens if you rebuild the kernel and world 
and "reinstall" them?  Does the problem persist?

Additionally, if you drop in Knoppix or some other Linux-on-CD solution, 
do you experience any problems?

--
Alan Gerber


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