Network crashes with Debian Squeeze and both drivers r8168/9

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k-meleon
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2012 1:57 pm

Network crashes with Debian Squeeze and both drivers r8168/9

Post by k-meleon »

Hallo!

I'm using the fitPC2 with Debian Squeeze and have problems with the network. Of course I tried to solve this problem on my own, but currently there seems to be no solution:

Used driver r8169
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Under heavy load, the network connection on fitPC2 looses it's link. Gigabit link is enabled, the speed is really good (35MB/s via Samba), but doing a directory synchronization with TotalCommander on Windows (via CIFS share provided by fit-PC2 ) results in a network crash (eth0: link down was reported by the kernel). After a while the network was running again most of the times.


Used driver r8168
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I tried to get information about that problem and read about the Realtek driver, which should solve this problem. I compiled the current driver r8168-8.032.00 in combination with Debian Squeeze and the kernel package linux-source-2.6.32_2.6.32-46_all.deb out of the box with no parameters changed.

First, the connection seemed to be more stable, but now the driver is more instable than before. It's slow and crashes network connection, even when there is no heavy traffic, thus looses the network link sporadically. And no "eth0: link down" kernel message reported...

Gigabit connection is activated and the old r8169 is deactivated. The network is dead for approx. 5 minutes and after that, everything is fine until the next network crash appears. Really nasty!!!

In another thread I read, that the RTL8111C and D types react differently. For some reason, my fitPC2 is using a RTL8111D.

Any hints? Can someone help me?

Thank you for your help!

Best regards,
Sven
fit-PC2 (Rev.1.21)

Denis
Posts: 301
Joined: Sun Apr 26, 2009 3:24 pm

Re: Network crashes with Debian Squeeze and both drivers r81

Post by Denis »

Hi Sven,
I heard stability issues were fixed in mainline 3.2.0, may be r8168-8.032.00 part is not enough? May be need to upgrade whole network stack? Can you please try boot and do network load tasks from for example LinuxMint13 LiveCD?
Compulab's Linux support

k-meleon
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2012 1:57 pm

Re: Network crashes with Debian Squeeze and both drivers r81

Post by k-meleon »

Hi Denis!

Yes, changing the driver seems to be not enough to get a stable OS. I updated Debian to kernel 3.2 and the RTL8111 seems to work much better now, even with driver r8169. Didn't have a network crash since then. I'm glad, that the open source NAS (Openmediavault) doesn't make any problems with linux kernel 3.2 . And for some reason the fitPC2 draws less current than with the 2.6.32 kernel. I'm happy!

If I'm getting problems again, I'll try to get LinuxMint running on my fitPC2 to see if it's working better...
fit-PC2 (Rev.1.21)

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