Via Velocity Gig Ethernet will not initialize on FreeBSD 6 Release

[Jordan Michaels]

Timothy wrote:

>Ethernet will not initialize on freebsd 6.0 Release:
>
>Feb 28 06:51:59  kernel: vge0: <VIA Networking Gigabit Ethernet> port 
>0xe000-0xe0ff mem 0xfb023000-0xfb0230ff irq 17 at device 7.0 on pci0
>Feb 28 06:51:59  kernel: vge0: MII read timed out
>Feb 28 06:51:59  kernel: vge0: failed to start MII autopoll
>Feb 28 06:51:59  kernel: vge0: MII without any phy!
>Feb 28 06:51:59  kernel: device_attach: vge0 attach returned 6
>
>The same thing happens with i386 or amd64.
>6.1 beta2, same thing.
>
>I found problem amd64/87316 on the buglist.  Should I open a separate problem 
>for i386?
>
>
>Thanks for any assistance.
>
>Timothy
>athlon 64 3200
>soltek sl-k8tpro-939
>  
>
We just had a similar situation with an NForce4 onboard GigE NIC. We
were using a linux OS, but it turns out it was the 100mb switch we had
it plugged into. Near as I can tell, the switch and the NIC had trouble
auto-negotiating the connection rate. Once we connected the GigE NIC to
a GigE switch, the NIC worked beautifully.

I'm not sure what "MII read timed out" means, but the OS does see the
NIC and appears to be attempting to use it. You may want to check to see
if it's the switch you're connecting to rather then the OS you're running.

HTH!

-- 
Warm regards,
Jordan Michaels
Vivio Technologies
http://www.viviotech.net/
jordan at viviotech.net