CentOS - Feb 2008 - Kernel-upgrade breaks forcedeth-driver (CentOS 4)

Hi all,

Same system as my previous mail - Asus P5N32-E SLI motherboards, CentOS 
4 x86_64.

The kernel-supplied forcedeth driver works in kernel-smp-2.6.9-55.0.9.EL 
(both with and without acpi=off), but after upgrading to 
kernel-smp-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL, networking does not start. After trying 
dhcp, ifconfig reports 17 dropped TX packets (all other counters are 
empty). Ethtool reports the same settings for working and non-working 
kernel, and both report the link arbitrated to 1000Mbps. Setting a 
manual address does not do anything useful either.

When booting with 55.0.9, networking works again.

This has also been confirmed on another system - 2.6.9-55.0.12.EL works, 
and 2.6.9-67.EL fails (but this system is not available for 
troubleshooting right now).

Also, the above system was attempted installed with CentOS 5 (.0 and 
later with 5.1), but this was aborted due to 'networking problems', so I
  am thinking that the problem possibly persists at least as late as the 
CentOS 5.1 install-kernel.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Yours,
-S
-- 
Simen Thoresen - Dolphin ICS Systems Administrator

Simen Thoresen wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Same system as my previous mail - Asus P5N32-E SLI motherboards, CentOS 
> 4 x86_64.
> 
> The kernel-supplied forcedeth driver works in kernel-smp-2.6.9-55.0.9.EL 
> (both with and without acpi=off), but after upgrading to 
> kernel-smp-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL, networking does not start. After trying 
> dhcp, ifconfig reports 17 dropped TX packets (all other counters are 
> empty). Ethtool reports the same settings for working and non-working 
> kernel, and both report the link arbitrated to 1000Mbps. Setting a 
> manual address does not do anything useful either.
> 
> When booting with 55.0.9, networking works again.
> 
> This has also been confirmed on another system - 2.6.9-55.0.12.EL works, 
> and 2.6.9-67.EL fails (but this system is not available for 
> troubleshooting right now).
> 
> Also, the above system was attempted installed with CentOS 5 (.0 and 
> later with 5.1), but this was aborted due to 'networking problems',
so I
>  am thinking that the problem possibly persists at least as late as the 
> CentOS 5.1 install-kernel.
> 
> Any thoughts or suggestions?
One of these is probably your issue (from the RHEL-4 kernel changelog):

* Tue Oct 23 2007 Jason Baron <jbaron at redhat.com> [2.6.9-65]
-forcedeth: fix nic poll that causes panics on some hardware (Andy 
Gospodarek) [337291]

<snip>

* Mon Jun 18 2007 Jason Baron <jbaron at redhat.com> [2.6.9-55.9]
-forcedeth: update to driver version 0.60 (Andy Gospodarek) [221910]

I would make SURE that I had the latest BIOS (firmware) update for the 
motherboard as those routinely fix problems with built on NICs and built 
on controllers.

Thanks,
Johnny Hughes

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