Why does broadcom NIC go down frequently during high network load in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 update 4 ?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet goes down frequently during high network load. The following error is logged when NIC goes down:
kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
kernel: bnx2: eth0 NIC Copper Link is Down
  • Sometimes hosts with broadcom BCM5709 NICs losses it's network connectivity.

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 and below.
  • Older than kernel-2.6.18-194.3.1.el5-x86_64.
  • Driver version: 2.0.2 and below.
  • Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet.

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