Seems like the spinlock for the AU1x00 ethernet device is initialised too late, as it is already used in enable_mac(), which is called via mii_probe() before the init takes place. The attached patch is working here for a Linux Au1100 2.6.22.6 kernel, and as far as I checked should also be applicable to the current head (just line numbers differ). Signed-off-by: Martin Gebert <Martin.Gebert@xxxxxxxxxxxx> --- drivers/net/au1000_eth.c 2008-06-26 14:21:53.000000000 +0200 +++ drivers/net/au1000_eth.c 2008-06-26 14:23:00.000000000 +0200 @@ -656,6 +656,7 @@ dev->name, base, irq); aup = dev->priv; + spin_lock_init(&aup->lock); /* Allocate the data buffers */ /* Snooping works fine with eth on all au1xxx */ @@ -766,7 +767,6 @@ aup->tx_db_inuse[i] = pDB; } - spin_lock_init(&aup->lock); dev->base_addr = base; dev->irq = irq; dev->open = au1000_open;