DM9000 stops passing traffic

I noticed today that the DM9000 NIC stops passing traffic when trying to
transfer a large amount of data over it. I have 3 of these boards, happens
on all 3, so it sounds like a hardware problem and not just related to one
board. (2 boards were purchased at the same time, came with latest
software, the original board came with older software, so all 3 were
definitely not from the same batch).

In any event, one way to test this out, see if it happens for you (I'd be
interested in hearing if it does) -- create a large file, let's say 20 MB.
Fire up an FTP server on another computer, console in or telnet into the
board, fire up an ftp session to that server, do a get on that file and
store it locally in /dev/shm/ so you're not writing to flash (though it
doesn't matter writing to flash or memory, same problem).

It's spurratic, sometimes it stops passing traffic around 3.5 MB, sometimes
at 10 MB, sometimes at 150 KB. Random every time. Only way to get it to
pass traffic again is a hard reset of the board.

I have tried dropping the MTU on the board down, to no effect, still has
the same behaviour. Tried dropping the MTU on the switch down for that
port, again to no effect.

Anyone else seeing this problem?

There was something like this related to 2.6.29, have you upgraded to
something later?  Think it is mentioned on buserrors's site
http://bliterness.blogspot.com/ in the archives.

Another thing MTU? Is that the Boa web server?  I have the impression that
terminating the server or re-booting from the application in Qtopia (on the
factory install) have no effect.

Dave

I purged Qtopia from my image a long time ago. MTU is the Maximum
Transmission Unit (the maximum size of a packet a network device can send.
1500 is standard on fast ethernet networks).

I'm running 2.6.29.2 on the device, I'll try upgrading it to 2.6.29.4 and
see if that helps in the next few days. Right now to get my big files over
(firmware images) i'm using the SD card or a USB flash drive.

Ok I found his post, I will update to 2.6.30 and see.

I am experiencing exactly the same problem under WinCE 5.0

Posted my problem here (http://friendlyarm.net/forum/topic/34), but no
answer yet.

I cannot answer to WinCE unfortunately, however upgrading to the linux
kernel 2.6.29.4 resolved my issue.

Just curious why you didn't go to 2.6.30.3 as I am tossing around whether
or not to upgrade from the factory version.

Do people generally only upgrade to fix problems or what are the criteria?

Cheers,
Dave

I had problems with 2.6.30.3 decompressing the kernel and just locking up,
so I went down to 2.6.29.4 and no problems.

As a general rule, I don't upgrade the kernel on anything unless there's a
real need to. I.e., to fix a driver, security hole, or if there's a feature
I would like or need that is only present (or working) in a newer version.

Just  a long shot on decompressing issues:
http://www.friendlyarm.org/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=42&SearchTerms=decompress

Thanks for the pointers on "to upgrade or not to upgrade".  Glad to hear
you finally got the other issues sorted out.  Looks like some good tutorial
material there.

Dave

Yeah I had already started looking into replacing the toolchain. Just let
everything build overnight, I'm replacing (not just modifying) the default
image today, building everything against the new toolchain. Hope all goes
well.

I have the same problem with yours wherein every time I load a files my
network connection always disconnected and I have to reboot the system. I'm
using kernel 2.6.29.0 and I want to upgrade to 2.6.29.4 or .6. Please let
me know how to upgrade the kernel and which directory have put the untared
file.

Thanks,
Puma