bizar problem with a Dell latitude D600's onboard nic

Sat Oct 15 11:40:15 PDT 2005

Alan Gerber wrote:

> 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?

Haven't tried this so far...

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

Right now the problem is the same when running  Knoppix 4.0, XP live CD 
(based on BartPE) or Freesbie 1.1 (based on FreeBSD 5.3) ie none of them 
"see"  the nic.

> -- 
> Alan Gerber
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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...