Random Network Drops on Realtek Interfaces (re)

[Pyun YongHyeon]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 05:33:18PM -0600, Cassidy Larson wrote:
> Suggestions were:
>  #1) try "arp -da".  This does not fix the issue.  I don't see any ARP
> for any other IPs other than the local.
>  #2) speed/duplex settings. I tried forcing 100FD on the box and that
> didnt resolve the issue. When I did force 100 full-duplex on the
> switch, the box appeared as if it was reporting 100HD. Odd.
> 

Don't do that. It would be normal behavior if link partner's
media configuration is autodetect as link partner have to rely on
parallel detection. If you have to use forced link, both your NIC
and link partner should use the same forced media configuration
which is highly discouraged configuration on gigabit links.

> > By chace can you find any messages in dmesg reported by re(4)?
> > dmesg output related to re(4) would be more helpful as RealTek
> > controllers used to show same device ids.
> 
> Here is my dmesg output for the re(4) devices:
> re0: <RealTek 8168/8168B/8168C/8168CP/8168D/8168DP/8111B/8111C/8111CP/8111DP
> PCIe Gigabit Ethernet> port 0xd800-0xd8ff mem
> 0xfeaff000-0xfeafffff,0xfdef0000-0xfdefffff irq 16 at device 0.0 on
> pci2
> re0: Using 1 MSI messages
> re0: Chip rev. 0x3c000000
> re0: MAC rev. 0x00400000
> miibus0: <MII bus> on re0
> re0: Ethernet address: 00:30:48:b0:ec:84
> re0: [FILTER]
> re1: <RealTek 8168/8168B/8168C/8168CP/8168D/8168DP/8111B/8111C/8111CP/8111DP
> PCIe Gigabit Ethernet> port 0xe800-0xe8ff mem
> 0xfebff000-0xfebfffff,0xfdff0000-0xfdffffff irq 17 at device 0.0 on
> pci3
> re1: Using 1 MSI messages
> re1: Chip rev. 0x3c000000
> re1: MAC rev. 0x00400000
> miibus1: <MII bus> on re1
> re1: Ethernet address: 00:30:48:b0:ec:85
> re1: [FILTER]
> 
> Currently, I am not using re1. Only re0 for access.
> 

It looks plain RTL8168C PCIe controller. Is there any odd messages
reported by re(4) such as watchdog timeouts?
If you disable MSI feature does it make any difference?(Add
hw.re.msi_disable="1" to /boot/loader.conf to disable MSI.)

> Another side note, I have updated the BIOS to 1.0a from Supermicro as
> of yesterday, but that has not fixed this issue.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -c