em0 watchdog timeout

[Willem Jan Withagen]

On 10-11-2011 23:25, Joshua Boyd wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 6:51 AM, Willem Jan Withagen <wjw at digiware.nl
> <mailto:wjw at digiware.nl>> wrote:
>
>     em0 at pci0:0:25:0:        class=0x020000 card=0x10bd15d9
>     chip=0x10bd8086 rev=0x02 hdr=0x00
>         vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
>         device     = 'Intel 82566DM Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (82566DM)'
>         class      = network
>         subclass   = ethernet
>         bar   [10] = type Memory, range 32, base 0xdf900000, size
>     131072, enabled
>         bar   [14] = type Memory, range 32, base 0xdf924000, size 4096,
>     enabled
>         bar   [18] = type I/O Port, range 32, base 0x1820, size 32, enabled
>         cap 01[c8] = powerspec 2  supports D0 D3  current D0
>         cap 05[d0] = MSI supports 1 message, 64 bit enabled with 1 message
>         cap 13[e0] = PCI Advanced Features: FLR TP
>
>
>     And note that this problem only raises it nasty head very few weeks...
>
>
> I have had the same problem, as shown here:
>
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2011-June/063092.html
>
> According to your pciconf output, your card either doesn't support
> MSI-X, or you have MSI-X disabled.
>
> Check the hw.pci.enable_msix sysctl and make sure that it is set to 1.
> Also check to make sure there aren't any BIOS settings blocking MSI-X.
>
> Apparently the older Intel gigabit cards don't support MSI-X, and as
> such get starved.

I checked and hw.pci.enable_msix=1, so that is on.
Any hints what to look for in the BIOS settings that might block MSI-X??

I'll also be ugrading the bios this weekend to if that will enable MSI-X.

Another solution would be to get a new version Intel Ethernet card?
And stick it in a PIC-X slot?
Or would that again suffer from starvation.

And as a side question:
	Why would that starvation actually "crash" the driver/device?

--WjW