Messages in this thread | | | From | Jonathan Woithe <> | Subject | Re: Realtek 8168D: no active link (2.6.29.2) | Date | Fri, 15 May 2009 08:52:19 +0930 (CST) |
| |
Hi
> On Thu, 2009-05-14 at 21:38 +0930, Jonathan Woithe wrote: > > Hi again > > > > Following up on my previous email, it seems that the stock kernel r8169 > > driver is now working with the card in this machine ever since I tried the > > Realtek driver version 8.012.00. It's almost as if the Realtek driver > > "unlocked" something on the chip (eg: activated the PHY), the status of > > which is remembered across reboots and hard powercycles. > > It's worth noting that a power cycle may not clear everything out, as > there is likely standby power being supplied even with you have the > machine off.
Absolutely, that's why I went on to say that I did what I call a "hard power cycle", which involves removing mains power from the PC for a minute or so. As previously advised, the adapter kept working even after this.
> You can be sure by disconnecting the mains power to the power supply for > 30 seconds or so -- I've seen some motherboards with large caps that take > a while to drain.
Indeed. To follow up on this, as per my earlier email I left the machine disconnected from the mains all night - so it was truly "off" for about 9 hours. Just before coming to work I flicked it on and the "link" LED lit almost immediately. So whatever the Realtek driver did, the resulting status would appear to be stored in some kind of non-volatile memory. While it would appear that this has worked around the problem for me, it would be nice if the mainline driver could do this itself.
> It would be interesting to see if your problems come back after doing > this.
As per my previous email and the above extended test, the problems do not seem to return - there doesn't appear to be any way to make the problem return in fact (at least under Linux).
> Also, if you have another machine on the gigabit network, it would > be interesting to do 'nc -l 9000 > /dev/null' and 'nc target 9000 > < /dev/zero' on the other and see if a ping between the machine > eventually stops working. This reliably hangs my 8168d card at home, but > it comes back with an ifdown/ifup sequence.
This is obviously a separate issue but I will test this when I get home tonight and report back.
Regards jonathan
| |