em driver packet loss in 6.2 amd64 (RELEASE and STABLE)

[Rob Watt]

Hi,

In 6.1-RELEASE there were a number of em driver stability and performance 
issues. We would regularly see packet loss at low to moderate load. A 
number of patches were applied that completely fixed the problem for us.

We installed 6.2-RELEASE, but even though 6.2 is supposed to have a 
stable em driver, we are noticing the same packet loss problem again. We 
updated to STABLE, and we didn't see any packet drops in our first day of 
testing, but today we are seeing packet drops again.

Has anyone else experienced this? Are there known problems with the STABLE 
em driver?

Our hardware:

   tyan s5372 motherboard (bios v1.05)
   2 intel x5355 processors
   adaptec aic7902 scsi daughter card
   there are 4 em interfaces (2 on-board, 2 from an add-on card), but we
     are currently only using em0

We have experienced the packet drop problem with a custom kernel and with 
the RELEASE SMP kernel.

-
Rob Watt