kern/82497: if_vge (via Gigabit Ethernet) on AMD64 only works when loaded late, not in loader.conf

[Martin Cracauer]

>Number:         82497
>Category:       kern
>Synopsis:       if_vge (via Gigabit Ethernet) on AMD64 only works when loaded late, not in loader.conf
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Jun 21 20:10:20 GMT 2005
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Martin Cracauer
>Release:        -current of today
>Organization:
>Environment:

FreeBSD wings.cons.org 6.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 6.0-CURRENT #4: Tue Jun 21 16:37:57 EDT 2005     cracauer at wings.cons.org:/usr/src/sys/amd64/compile/WINGS64  amd64


>Description:
I recently got an AMD64 socket 754 board with Via K8T800, an Abit K8V-Pro, which has a if_vge Gigabit Ethernet.

This works only when you load the module after the full machine is up.

If you put if_vge_load="YES" into loader.conf you get:

Jun 21 19:32:46 wings kernel: vge0: <VIA Networking Gigabit Ethernet> port 0xb8\
00-0xb8ff mem 0xe3014000-0xe30140ff irq 22 at device 14.0 on pci0
Jun 21 19:32:46 wings kernel: vge0: MII read timed out
Jun 21 19:32:46 wings kernel: vge0: failed to start MII autopoll
Jun 21 19:32:46 wings kernel: vge0: MII without any phy!
Jun 21 19:32:46 wings kernel: device_attach: vge0 attach returned 6

If you don't load it from loader.conf it works fine.

I have mii compiled into the kernel.

>How-To-Repeat:
Put if_vge_load="YES" into loader.conf 

reboot.

You will not get an interface and you'll have the above message in /var/log/messages.

>Fix:
You can work around it by loading the module later.

It is not clear to me what is going on here.  Since I have mii statically compiled into the kernel it is not a case of just forgetting to load a dependency.

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: