e1000 problems -- the nightmare has begun

[robertb]

This Dell Optiplex GX270 has a built-in NIC adapter, the Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit. Under Linux, I am using the e1000 driver and I am having all sorts of problems.

The biggest problem is that my connections drop randomly. When using PuTTY, I get

• "Incorrect MAC received on packet" or
• "Incoming packet was garbled on decryption"

When using ssh command line, I get

• "Corrupted MAC on input"
• or it just freezes

Another problem is that I am unable to connect via HTTP (port 80) to my internal router's configuration screen. In particular, "telnet 192.168.1.1 80" says "Connection refused". It works on all my other computers except this one; I even tried changing the IP address to one of the other machines (just to see if it was firewall/filtering problem) and that didn't work, either.

I compiled Linux kernel 2.4.27-10 (on Debian sid/unstable) with the standard e1000 driver and it doesn't work. I also tried downloading and installing the latest e1000 driver (11/11/2006 7.3.20) from Intel's web site (this driver works with both 2.4 and 2.6 kerneles), but it doesn't improve.

I also tried tweaking the speed, duplex, and autonegotiation of the e1000. In particular, I tried setting it to 10 Mbps, full flow control, full duplex, no interrupt throttle, and disabling of checksum offload:

options e1000 Duplex=2 FlowControl=3 Speed=10 InterruptThrottleRate=0 XsumRX=0

Doesn't help.

My routers are a Linksys BEFSR41 and a Linksys BEFW11S4 (wireless turned off).

My other computers are a

• generic Linux PC w/10 Mbps card (MTU = 1500)
• another generic Linux PC w/10 Mbps card (MTU = 1500)
• a Mac mini running @ 100 Mbps
• Dell laptop w/Xircon 10/100 PC card running @ 10 Mbps

Here's the output from ifconfig:

% ifconfig -a
eth0
Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0D:56:27:1B:18
inet addr:192.168.2.5 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:5406 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4179 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:615423 (600.9 KiB) TX bytes:429909 (419.8 KiB)
Base address:0xdf40 Memory:feae0000-feb00000

Here's the output from ethtool:

% sudo ethtool -S eth0
NIC statistics:
rx_packets: 5687
tx_packets: 4401
rx_bytes: 645299
tx_bytes: 452311
rx_broadcast: 132
tx_broadcast: 1
rx_multicast: 0
tx_multicast: 0
rx_errors: 0
tx_errors: 0
tx_dropped: 0
multicast: 0
collisions: 0
rx_length_errors: 0
rx_over_errors: 0
rx_crc_errors: 0
rx_frame_errors: 0
rx_no_buffer_count: 0
rx_missed_errors: 0
tx_aborted_errors: 0
tx_carrier_errors: 0
tx_fifo_errors: 0
tx_heartbeat_errors: 0
tx_window_errors: 0
tx_abort_late_coll: 0
tx_deferred_ok: 0
tx_single_coll_ok: 0
tx_multi_coll_ok: 0
tx_timeout_count: 0
tx_restart_queue: 0
rx_long_length_errors: 0
rx_short_length_errors: 0
rx_align_errors: 0
tx_tcp_seg_good: 0
tx_tcp_seg_failed: 0
rx_flow_control_xon: 0
rx_flow_control_xoff: 0
tx_flow_control_xon: 0
tx_flow_control_xoff: 0
rx_long_byte_count: 645299
rx_csum_offload_good: 5672
rx_csum_offload_errors: 0
rx_header_split: 0
alloc_rx_buff_failed: 0
tx_smbus: 0
rx_smbus: 0
dropped_smbus: 0

My kernel:

% uname -a
Linux darkstar 2.4.27-20070216 #1 Fri Feb 16 13:33:48 PST 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

[objuan]

I run a medium size network with around five hundred server's most all are Dell PE servers.

Most have this pro/1000 gig bit Nic. If you don't mind upgrading I would move to Debian stable or testing.

Stable uses a kernel 2.6.8 and testing uses kernel 2.6.15 an higher. I use both and have very little problems.

Whether you choose to use Debian or another flavor you should upgrade to a newer kernel with more up to date drivers.

[robertb]

Stable uses a kernel 2.6.8 and testing uses kernel 2.6.15 an higher. I use both and have very little problems.

Whether you choose to use Debian or another flavor you should upgrade to a newer kernel with more up to date drivers.

I do use Debian (unstable/sid). It seems that only 2.6.8 is available as the kernel-source-2.6 alias. I'll give that a try. Thanks!

[robertb]

I do use Debian (unstable/sid). It seems that only 2.6.8 is available as the kernel-source-2.6 alias. I'll give that a try. Thanks!

It seems to work perfectly, as far as I can tell.

Thanks!

Now to move on to getting my cd/dvd writer to work!