Distribution: Debian unstable/testing Hardware Environment: Athlon 1GHz, Gigabyte N400 Pro using integrated gigabit ethernet Software Environment: Samba 3.0.2, raid 5 & 0 Problem Description: System hard locks due to r8169 gigabit ethernet. No kernel panic, no error. Nothing reported in logs. Network is dead. only blinking curser in console, but doesn't respond to input. I stripped down kernel to almost just essentials and still having hard locks. Steps to reproduce: All i have to do is browse the server via samba from a windows client for a little while. It's very random but happens fairly quickly if i go in and out of directories really quickly. I also tried this on a non raid partition and still have the same problem. I installed a 3C905 network card and cannot reporduce the problem.
Try ALT+sysrq+t and/or nmi_watchdog
Created attachment 2169 [details] Patch against Tx descriptor overflow in r8169 driver Please report if things go worse/better/no difference.
Sorry for the delay. I tried the patch and had the same problem.
Can you give Martin's suggestion a try: - enable io-apic (remove the zzz_APIC related options in your .config and run 'make oldconfig', build kernel, ...); - pass an 'nmi_watchdog=1' option to the kernel at boot; - check that the magic sysrq is not disabled (avoid 'kernel.sysrq = 0' in your /etc/sysctl.conf); - use the aforementionned keyboard sequence when something goes wrong. You can repeat this process: - with standard kernel + previous patch - with standard kernel + Andrew Morton's patch (-mm) Disable PREEMPT and ACPI if enabled. If it still does not make a difference, with standard kernel + -mm patch: - increase NUM_{RX/TX}_DESC in the driver to 128; - decrease NUM_{RX/TX}_DESC in the driver to 16.
Does the 2.6.5-mm series fix your problems?
this issue seems to be fixed in 2.6.3. Sorry it took so long for my response. I forgot about it. Thank you for your help.