Topic: realtek 8139 @100mbps through autosensing hub

[jonathan storey]

just wondering if anyone can offer some advice here.  I have a e-smith
serever gateway supplying internet and network services to my home lan.  Lan
consists of win2k and a suse linux box.  Everything was running fine with a
simple netgear hub, but when i installed a dual speed autosensing hub
instead (netgear ds104) problems started.  all services are working, except
in certain circumstances i get the internal facing nic on my e-smith stop
responding.  These circumstances include (not exaustive) ftp from server to
win2k of large file (650mb ;> ),  smb transfer of files (newreader storing
binaries on e-smith network drive (ibay)), ftp to and from the suse machine
from e-smith & from suse.  The ftp transfers stop after about 2-5 megs have
gone leading me to believe that the network card in the e-smith machine is ,
ahem, shi**ing itself when it transfers/recieves such a large quantity of
data in such a short time.  The nics in the server are ALFA 2206 10/100
(realtek 8129/39 chips), with netgear fa311 in the win 2k and some 10/100
ne2000 compliant card in the suse.  The ds104 is brand new, just wondering
if i need to specify some command line options to tell the e-smith nic to
run @ 100mbps ?  This appears to be the problem.  As i said before, setup
was working fine before the swapping of hub for dual speed auto sense hub.
Hope someone can help

[Michael Doerner]

Hi Jonathan,

we had some similar problems here long ago when we changed from a 10 MB network hub to a dual speed 10/100.

Feedback from others at those days made me aware of problem reports for Realtek 8139 (?) cards. I don't use those cards any longer for our E-smith servers and we have never seen these symptoms again.

My preferred modell for E-smith servers is a Kingston card which gave us never any problems. It costs a bit more than a Realtek but it's definitely worth the money for us.

Regards,
Michael Doerner

[enigma01]

I had untold problems when i changed a card for a realtek 8139 card on my Autosensig hub.  
Changed to 3com and Dlink
Now OK

my advice to you is junk the realtek cards

Enigma