realtek8169 gigabit, doesnt work at all

esc* · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Posts: 55 Location: Finland

Hello all,

i tryed setup hours for lan to work, but just noticed that realtek 8169 gigabit pci-lancard is the issue, driver are loaded dmesg shows
r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 2.2LK loaded, kernel is 2.6.23-gentoo-r3 x86_64 (amd64)
i can also setup IP-address just like normal and so on, only my local 10/100/1000M switch show that speed is only 100M not 1Gbit.

i already replaced the card (now old 3com 3c509x is working fine), but here is some details of ethtool wich i remember.

Supported ports: [ FIBRE ]
Speed: 1000Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Auto-negotiation: yes
Link detected: yes

Strange that supported ports is only "FIBRE", i dont have a fibre and other lan cards 10/100M have TP/MII etc and are working fine.
Tryed to change port to MII like 3com have but cant. Also its not possible to try change speed, show that 1000Mb/s is only option for that card.
Local network was totally dead with r8169, its something about the card modes etc. im not expert for this but i like to see 1Gbit speed instead of this 3com 100Mbit.

i found some info in http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_RTL8168 i havent never used this card on windows, if thats do some problems.

esc* · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Posts: 55 Location: Finland

well. i put the nic on windows machine and WakeOnLan was disabled (by default?), i enabled it and put back to linux.
It was working like 5 minutes and then totally dead again, no errors etc.
When enabled WOL Supported ports [FIBRE] changed automatically to TP by ethtool.
I'm back now my old 3c59x at the moment, its like kernel driver problem. Anyone have this NIC working whit gentoo and kernel version?

doctork · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:15 pm Post subject:

I've got a couple of these working without a problem.

Here's one from lspci:

03:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)

From uname:

Linux media-x2 2.6.23-gentoo-r3 #7 SMP

doc

pinkcameloy · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:03 pm Post subject:

I have the same problem with esc*

However, I searched a bit inside the kernel and I found some support with r8169...i tried to install it as a module and then to make my computer autoload this as a module every time the computer starts...however it fails to autostart it...can anybody help me with the procedure because i am afraid i must be forgetting some step(s)

thanks...

nekromancer · Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:09 am Post subject:

i'm having the same problem. I have a Realtek r8169 PCI card installed.
When I boot with kernel 2.6.22-gentoo-r8 I can't use that interface at all. On the same machine I have a Broadcom Tigon3 (tg3) on the board and it works fine.

When I boot with kernel 2.6.17-gentoo-r7 both network cards work fine.. what happened from one kernel to the other to render the r8169 useless ?

V-Li · Retired Dev Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 613

Kernel 2.6.24 has a lot of fixes with rt8169, which made my network chip RT8101e work, too. Try it.

nekromancer · Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 2:20 pm Post subject:

I tried 2.6.23-gentoo-r6 and 2.6.24-gentoo. Still same problem as before.

I don't get it though.. the "Link" light is steady green, and the "ACT" light is flashing green (like there is data going through)
The interface goes up with no problem (static IP config) but I can't ping anything on my LAN. And doing a "netstat -r" shows the routing table but it takes like 3 minutes to print.

I can conclude this has something to do with the driver or with something else in the kernel.. it just broke from 2.6.17 to 2.6.22/23/24. It's the only driver there for realtek 8169 gig ether.

nekromancer · Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:24 pm Post subject:

This is a pretty bad situation for me.

I can't use 2.6.17 anyways because it doesn't have GFS2 support. Though 2.6.19 does have it but the compile fails at the end. Looks like a compile problem related to GFS2

during fs/built-in.o

can't use the other cos the realtek card won't work on them and I need the GFS2 more than I need the realtek drivers.

V-Li · Retired Dev Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 613

nekromancer · Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:23 pm Post subject:

V-Li · Retired Dev Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 613

So you expect your network on eth0? Do you have two network interfaces? And did you try starting it as /etc/init.d/net.eth1?

nekromancer · Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:40 pm Post subject:

yup.

I have 2 interfaces.

Broadcom Tigon3 on the motherboard (eth0)
Realtek r8169 on PCI-Slot (eth1)

It used to work both interfaces running at the same time. The eth0 is connected to another PC via cross-over cable. eth1 is connected to a switch on a LAN. Normal setup.. nothing fancy.

I expect my network on eth1. Now it doesn't matter if I am connected to my LAN from eth0 .. I'm still left with a non-working ethernet card. I need 2. And yes I tried switching them around. Whatever I put on eth0 works, whatever I put on eth1 doesn't work (can't ping a thing on the network). I don't have any firewalls running either and all that iptables/netfilter stuff is all excluded from the kernel.

My /etc/conf.d/net file looks like this

V-Li · Retired Dev Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 613

Can you tell the dmesg output for the working kernel?

And please post the complete dmesg of the not working, too...maybe something weird happens elsewhere.

nekromancer · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 9:47 am Post subject:

I think something wierd is going on with UDEV.

I replaced the network card with a different one and I notice this in dmesg

V-Li · Retired Dev Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 613

You cannot start this via a renamed net init script?

nekromancer · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 10:42 am Post subject:

well yeah I made a net.eth3 and started it.. still I can't ping anything on the other side.
I'll try to reboot the switch it is connected to.. I guess it's the last resort.. maybe it's ARP tables or something got all messed up. I'm doing HA tests so maybe it crapped out the switch.

Monkeh · Veteran Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 1656 Location: England

Try booting with pci=nomsi.

nekromancer · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:45 pm Post subject:

ok this is funny now.. everytime I reboot the eth of the pci card is incremented by 1.
eth1 then it was eth2, then 3 then 4 now eth5.

Monkeh · Veteran Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 1656 Location: England

nekromancer · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 10:23 am Post subject:

Monkeh · Veteran Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 1656 Location: England

No, that shouldn't be a problem. If I were you, I'd return the card as faulty and get a refund, and buy something with an Intel chip.

nekromancer · Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 2:02 pm Post subject:

Monkeh · Veteran Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 1656 Location: England

So you had the network set up wrong. But still, I'd return them as faulty (even if they're not.. crap isn't worth paying for) and buy something decent.