em0: watchdog timeout -- resetting (6.1-STABLE)

[Dan Olson]

Jack Vogel wrote:
> On 9/13/06, Ronald Klop <ronald-freebsd8 at klop.yi.org> wrote:
> ...
> 
>> Them manual page em(4) mentions trying another cable when the watchdog
>> timeout happens, so I tried that. But it didn't help.
>> Is there anything I can test to (help) debug this?
>> It happens a lot when my machine is under load. (100% CPU)
>> Is it possible that it happens since I upgraded the memory from 1GB to 2
>> GB?
> 
> watchdogs mean that the transmit ring is not being cleaned, so the
> question is what is your machine doing at 100% cpu, if its that busy
> the network watchdogs may just be a side effect and not the real
> problem?
> 
> Jack

I see these too when installing packages over nfs on my Laptop. If I run 
with a low level of network traffic, i.e. ssh compile, and peg out the 
cpu with a benchmark such as flops, I don't see these timeouts.

6.1-STABLE FreeBSD 6.1-STABLE #0: Sat Aug 26 14:45:40 CDT 2006

em0 at pci2:1:0:   class=0x020000 card=0x05491014 chip=0x101e8086 rev=0x03 
hdr=0x00
     vendor   = 'Intel Corporation'
     device   = '82540EP Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Mobile)'
     class    = network

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Dan