Why does broadcom NIC go down frequently during high network load in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 update 4 ?
Issue
Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernetgoes 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 BCM5709NICs 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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