hello, i currently have a big problem and i hope someone could help. I am running debian woody with kernel 2.4.18 (fresh from the current cvs tree)on a cobalt RaQ2+. Everything works smooth but one or two times a day all network traffic stops. The server is still running and i can log into the RaQ2+ on the serial console. If i restart the network (/etc/init.d/netwroking restart) i get no errors and everything works well again. The tulip driver is 0.9.15-pre9. So i decided to upgrade to kernel 2.4.20 because the driver there is 0.9.15-pre12. It took some time to get a stabel configuration. Now with the kernel 2.4.20 the network problem is bigger than ever. Simply loging into the RaQ with ssh and running midnight commander is freezing the nics. Or if i log into webmin the nics freeze as soon as the first website appears. The same effect is with kernel 2.4.21. Therefore i recompiled all kernels with tulip support as module to get greater flexibility (it´s much easyer to play with insmod and rmmod). No matter what otpions i use (10Mbit, 100Mbit, Half or Fulldublex) the results are still the same: - kernel 2.4.18 with tulip 0.9.15-pre9: nics freeze 1 to 2 times a day - kernel > 2.4.18 with tulip 0.9.15-pre12: nics freeze after just a few minutes I played with the tulip drivers and compiled later revisions as modules to use with kernel 2.4.18 and earlyer revisions to use with kernel 2.4.20 and above. No effort. Fortunately i have six RaQ2+ so i can test different kernels with different tulip drivers but this is driving me nuts. I spent nearly 4 hours each day for the past 4 weeks to get rid of this nic problem but i dont know what to do next. Btw. even if i use only one nic (no matter wether eth0 or eth1) the problem occurs. I have an old RaQ2 with only 1 nic running stable on 2.4.18 with tulip 0.9.15-pre9. Unfortunately tulip debug mode is not working (neither in the kernel nor as an option while loading the module) so i cant see any problems within the nic driver. I tried to compile tulip-diag but this is not working due to limitations of the kernel source tree. >From other lists i know there are many people having this problem but none of them has ever solved it. Any ideas what i could do next or do you have a solution? Your feedback is welcome. Best regards Michael
