I'm running pfSense 2.0.3-RELEASE (i386) on a Dell 2650 rack-mount server. I'm using the built-in Broadcom gigabit ethernet NICs for WAN and LAN:
bge0: <Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Controller, ASIC rev. 0x000105> mem 0xfca10000-0xfca1ffff irq 28 at device 6.0 on pci4 miibus0: <MII bus> on bge0 brgphy0: <BCM5701 10/100/1000baseTX PHY> PHY 1 on miibus0 brgphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-FDX, auto bge0: [ITHREAD] bge1: <Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Controller, ASIC rev. 0x000105> mem 0xfca00000-0xfca0ffff irq 29 at device 8.0 on pci4 miibus1: <MII bus> on bge1 brgphy1: <BCM5701 10/100/1000baseTX PHY> PHY 1 on miibus1 brgphy1: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-FDX, auto bge1: [ITHREAD] bge0@pci0:4:6:0: class=0x020000 card=0x01211028 chip=0x164514e4 rev=0x15 hdr=0x00 class = network subclass = ethernet cap 07[40] = PCI-X 64-bit supports 133MHz, 512 burst read, 1 split transaction cap 01[48] = powerspec 2 supports D0 D3 current D0 cap 03[50] = VPD cap 05[58] = MSI supports 8 messages, 64 bit bge1@pci0:4:8:0: class=0x020000 card=0x01211028 chip=0x164514e4 rev=0x15 hdr=0x00 class = network subclass = ethernet cap 07[40] = PCI-X 64-bit supports 133MHz, 512 burst read, 1 split transaction cap 01[48] = powerspec 2 supports D0 D3 current D0 cap 03[50] = VPD cap 05[58] = MSI supports 8 messages, 64 bit I am having severe problems with these NICs---particularly the WAN side (bge0). Under traffic (not necessarily high load), I will lose connectivity for some time until the NIC appears to be reset via a watchdog. It is typical to see this repeated in dmesg: bge0: watchdog timeout -- resetting bge0: link state changed to DOWN bge0: link state changed to UP bge0: watchdog timeout -- resetting bge0: link state changed to DOWN bge0: link state changed to UP bge0: watchdog timeout -- resetting bge0: link state changed to DOWN bge0: link state changed to UP bge0: watchdog timeout -- resetting bge0: link state changed to DOWN bge0: link state changed to UP In System -> Advanced -> Networking, I have disabled hardware checksum offload; hardware TCP segmentation offload; and hardware large receive offload, but this hasn't seemed to help. I have seen on Google references to problems with Broadcom 57XX-based NICs under FreeBSD, and there are indications some work has been done in FreeBSD 9-STABLE to improve matters, which is obviously not helpful for pfSense running 8.1-RELEASE-p13. I have checked the state table usage when this problem occurs and it is low (with ample free state entries available). I have heard that disabling MSI can sometimes be helpful, but the bge driver does not appear to use it: sysctl -a | grep msi hw.bce.msi_enable: 1 hw.cxgb.msi_allowed: 2 hw.em.enable_msix: 1 hw.igb.enable_msix: 1 hw.malo.pci.msi_disable: 0 hw.pci.honor_msi_blacklist: 1 hw.pci.enable_msix: 1 hw.pci.enable_msi: 1 Has anyone run into this problem? Can anyone offer a possible solution or workaround? I have a dual-NIC expansion card in the same machine that supports fxp NICs, and, right now, I am tempted to switch to those, believing it is probably better to have stable 100BaseT than flaky 1000BaseT. But, I'm hoping something can be done to make the bge ports be stable. Any thoughts? Cheers, Paul. _______________________________________________ List mailing list List@lists.pfsense.org http://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list