Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 21:57:05 +0000 (GMT) From: wpaul@FreeBSD.ORG (Bill Paul) To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Call for testers, if_bge patch for BCM570x users Message-ID: <20040915215705.46B3416A4CF@hub.freebsd.org>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Ok, I have a patch that needs testing which addresses a particular problem with the bge(4) driver. If you have a BCM5701 or newer copper NIC and are running -current or 5.3-BETA, you may have noticed that doing a simple "ifconfig bge0" causes the driver to emit a "bge0: gigabit link up" message on the console. In fact, anything that invokes the SIOCGIFMEDIA ioctl in the driver will do it, including dhcp and possibly even the PPPOE daemon. The bge driver programs the chip to autopoll the MII to check for link changes. But when calling bge_miibus_readreg() or bge_miibus_writereg() to access the PHY registers, you have to turn autopolling off (failing to do so apparently triggers PCI bus errors on some hardware). It turns out that toggling autopoll off and back on again causes the chip to generate a spurious link change event. This makes the driver think that the link has dropped and come back up, which is why it spits out the "bge0: gigabit link up" message. I have a small patch to filter these bogus events out. It is available at: http://www.freebsd.org/~wpaul/Broadcom/if_bge.diff It works for my sample BCM5701 card, however I want to be sure it works for the BCM5702, 5703, 5704 or 5705 chips before I check it in. (Murphy's Law dictates that Broadcom somehow made the other chips different enough that this trick won't work for them.) Unfortunately, I don't have anything newer than the 5701 handy at the moment. So, if you have a system with a bge(4) device with a BCM5702/3/4/5 chip with a gigabit over twisted pair interface (*NOT* fiber optic!) and are experiencing problems with spurious link up messages, please try this patch. This applies to both x86 and amd64 systems. NOTE: don't bother writing me to tell me that you will be able to test the patch sometime in the near/far/whatever future. I don't need to know that. Just go ahead and try it, then show me the results. -Bill -- ============================================================================= -Bill Paul (510) 749-2329 | Senior Engineer, Master of Unix-Fu wpaul@windriver.com | Wind River Systems ============================================================================= <adamw> you're just BEGGING to face the moose =============================================================================
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20040915215705.46B3416A4CF>