Driver issue 14e4-1678 (HP)

[kriske]

Hi there,

I'm trying iPXE on a HP Proliant ML series, with 2 onboard ethernet controllers (TG3) and tagged by iPXE under the driver 14e4-1678.

When I use ifstat I can see both interfaces without any problems, however the Link seems to be down in my results and in reality there is no problem with the connection (verified by booting another OS and network works fine).

I've tested the configuration with autosensing on the switch side and with fixed values, but iPXE keeps thinking that there is no link (Link: down, Link status: Down).

When I try to transfer any kind of data over the interface I get a Connection timeout and I only see some value at TXE, all other stats seems to be empty.

Are there any suggestions as I am out of options.


Thanks!

[robinsmidsrod]

Are you using the latest version from git? There were some patches added to the tg3 driver during summer 2013 that affects link detection behavior.

Also, you should go through all the tests at http://ipxe.org/dev/driver to understand exactly where the issue is happening. The discussion on the mailing-list prior to getting the patch showed that using a 100Mbit hub/switch instead of gigabit actually made link detection consistent. That is obviously not a long-term solution, but it helps narrow down the problem. I've also heard that HP servers might require a firmware update to fix an issue in relation to the tg3 driver.

[kriske]

Hi,

I'm using the latest git version I could find.

Thank you very much for your additional information as it was very usefull and now I have something to test and evaluate further!

[robinsmidsrod]

Build your ipxe binary with DEBUG=tg3,tg3_hw,tg3_phy and see if it spits out some more information about the state during link up/down changes. Maybe it will tell us something. You might want to ask this question on the mailing-list. More developers there.