Does this dmesg output indicate a failed network card on Red Hat Enterprise?

Question

Having an issue with a network card on a server today. If I restart the service via "service network restart" the card never comes back, the command prompt just hangs. I suspect it's a bad network card but wanted to run the output of dmesg by someone that might have come across these errors before. The output contains many lines like the one below.

NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth2: transmit timed out
eth2: tx_timeout: tx_done_idx=98 free_idx=89 cmdsts=8000005a
eth2: after: tx_done_idx=98 free_idx=89 cmdsts=8000005a
eth2: ns83820_tx_watch: 98 89 119
eth2: tx_timeout: tx_done_idx=98 free_idx=89 cmdsts=8000005a
eth2: after: tx_done_idx=98 free_idx=89 cmdsts=8000005a
eth2: ns83820_tx_watch: 98 89 119
eth2: tx_timeout: tx_done_idx=98 free_idx=89 cmdsts=8000005a
eth2: after: tx_done_idx=98 free_idx=89 cmdsts=8000005a
eth2: ns83820_tx_watch: 98 89 119

Any input would be appreciated. Thank you.

Edit:

lspci -vv output:

02:05.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83820 10/100/1000 Ethernet Controller
    Subsystem: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83820 10/100/1000 Ethernet Controller
    Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV+ VGASnoop- ParErr+ Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
    Status: Cap+ 66Mhz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
    Latency: 64 (2750ns min, 13000ns max), Cache Line Size 10
    Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 209
    Region 0: I/O ports at 2400 [size=256]
    Region 1: Memory at fe040000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
    Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
        Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold-)
        Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

What kernel and distro are you running ? What card ? Was the network under heavy load ? — Torian, Nov 02 '10 at 02:34
I'm running Red Hat Enterprise 4, kernel 2.6.9-89.29.1. The network was not under heavy load at all. It was running fine until I restarted the service. — Bourne, Nov 02 '10 at 07:46

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 02 '10 at 08:04

If network card works before you use "service network restart" command then try to change network configuration without restarting network using "ifconfig", "route", etc. commands and see what happens.

If you are able to change network configuration without causing problems then it is some kind of card problem or card/OS compatibility issue. During "service network restart" OS may power off the NIC and try to power it on back again. May be this operation is failing.

You can also avoid using "service network restart" completely on this machine and always work with "ifconfig", "route", "ip" commands etc. to get things done in case they work.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 02 '10 at 02:19

0

Try #lspci -vv and find your device in the output.

answered Nov 02 '10 at 02:19

wrmine

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Modified the post to include the output. What am I looking for? – Bourne Nov 02 '10 at 07:47
Any errors in the output. – wrmine Nov 03 '10 at 19:58
No, I am not seeing any errors in the output at all. – Bourne Nov 04 '10 at 04:10
The next step would be to look at #ethtool eth2 and #ethtool -S eth2 – wrmine Nov 04 '10 at 23:35

Does this dmesg output indicate a failed network card on Red Hat Enterprise?

2 Answers2