Problems with em0 failing to initialize on stable?

[Ben Stuyts]

On 17 apr 2008, at 16:11, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 02:02:51PM +0200, Ben Stuyts wrote:
>> On 17 apr 2008, at 13:20, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
>>> On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 06:32:32PM +0900, gnn at freebsd.org wrote:
>>>> I am running 7-STABLE with machines that are net booted.  On  
>>>> occasion,
>>>> that is not with any level of predictability, this happens:
>>>>
>>>> em0: Hardware Initialization Failed
>>>> em0: Unable to initialize the hardware
>>>>
>>>> which of course stops the machine in its tracks.  A normal dmesg is
>>>> also included.
>>>>
>>>> Any steps I should take to help debug this?
>>>
>>> George, can you provide the following?
>>>
>>> * Motherboard type and model (a URL to the board would be good)
>>> * kenv | grep smbios
>>> * pciconf -lv
>>
>> I have seen this too. A couple of times on a new server here. Maybe  
>> one in
>> two or three reboots. So far, it only happens after a reboot, but  
>> not after
>> a hard reset or power cycle. This board has 3 em network if's. Two  
>> on the
>> board itself, and one on a daughter card on the ipmi add-on card.  
>> It is
>> always em0 that is giving trouble. The board is a Supermicro X7DBP-i:
>> <http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon1333/5000P/X7DBP-i.cfm 
>> >
>
> I'm wondering if the IPMI add-on is what's doing it.  However, the  
> IPMI
> cards compatible with the X7DBP all have a dedicated NIC (versus
> piggybacking on top of the existing mainboards' NICs, which almost
> always causes problems of the mysterious sort).  I'm not sure, but I
> don't think em0 will be that NIC.

Correct, em0 and em1 are on the mainboard. em2 is on the daughter- 
daughtercard and also single use for the OS. And then there's a 4th  
nic which is the ipmi interface. It is completely separate. (I have  
the SIM1U-3B & SIM1U-3D daughter cards: <http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/SIM.cfm 
 >

> Both you and George have boards that use the 82563EB.  jv@ will have  
> to
> help with this one.  I wonder if it's a BIOS bug of some kind, where
> something on the NIC isn't getting reset by the BIOS on a soft boot...

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. I can test patches  
during evening hours when this server is mostly idle.

Ben