Problems with BCE network adapter (Dell PE2950)

[David Christensen]

> Sorry for the top post, but I have just managed to repeat is 
> exact crash 
> twice on a new PE 1950 system.   I have core files available.
> 
> It seems that after a couple of reboots the problem goes away. The 
> system actually crashed 4 times but 2 of the cores where corrupt.
> 
> It also seems that the system will be stable if the following 
> message is 
> not produced shortly after /etc/rc.d/netif start:
> 
> bce0: /usr/src/sys/dev/bce/if_bce.c(3489): Too many free 
> rx_bd (0xFFF9 > 
> 0x01FE)!
> 

The error indicates that too many receive buffer descriptors
were freed from the receive chain.  The driver must be losing
count somewhere.  The process for duplicating the error sounds
simple enough, how much data is in your NFS mounted directory?
Are you using TCP or UDP for the NFS mount?

Any idea what type of network activity is happening just after
/etc/rc.d/netif start (DHCP, NTP, anything else)?

Dave