SMSC911x network interface cards' light never comes back on after cable replugged

Question

I have this strange problem in an embedded system (linux) we build, so I don't have normal GUI trouble-shooting tools on Linux or Windows machines.

The problem is the NIC is no longer usable after cable removed. Even if I re-plug the cable, the lights on it never come back on again and nothing can be sent or received. ifconfig still works on the surface, but doesn't have real effect. Only a reboot will solve the problem. I guess the problem is in the ethernet driver.

My question is how the trouble-shoot it. Any clues/hints? Thanks.

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Thank you guys! The board is a gumstix and the PHY is SMSC911x. We are running on Linux 3.0.12. It turns out the smsc911x_soft_reset() of the NIC fails when driver calls smsc911x_open(). The symptom also includes we must run ifconfig multiple times (not consistent) to bring the NIC up and the system can detect it.

Answer 1

I did a search on "SMSC911x soft reset failed" and find this link. http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.network/216467. I removed SMSC_PHY=y in the linux build config file and that fixed the problem. It seems the driver is not compatible. Can somebody explain this, or is there a better solution?