NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out

[h8dk97]

I'm running 2.6.18-8 kernel on the following hardware:

Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
CPU: Core 2 Duo E6700
RAM: Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4 PRO 2GB
Graphics: Gigabyte GF 7300GT

Every once in a while I'm loosing network connection, and what I get in messages is this:

--- Start extract from /var/log/messages ---
ov 15 06:41:58 hercules kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
Nov 15 06:41:58 hercules kernel: sky2 eth0: tx timeout
Nov 15 06:41:58 hercules kernel: sky2 hardware hung? flushing
Nov 15 06:55:03 hercules kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
Nov 15 06:55:03 hercules kernel: sky2 eth0: tx timeout
Nov 15 06:55:03 hercules kernel: sky2 status report lost?
Nov 15 06:55:43 hercules kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
Nov 15 06:55:43 hercules kernel: sky2 eth0: tx timeout
Nov 15 06:55:43 hercules kernel: sky2 hardware hung? flushing
--- End extract from /var/log/messages ---

I've found different suggestions on how to fix this i.e. disable ACPI (but that was for older version of kernel), however, I'm not confident doing anything until I get enough information about this, as this is my production system.

Has anyone experienced this problem and how could this be fixed?

Thank you.

[yyagol]

have you try boot with "noapic" ?

[h8dk97]

[quote]
yyagol wrote:
have you try boot with "noapic" ?[/quote]

pci=noapic or pci=noapci ? sorry, I just want to be 100% sure.
Thanks.

[yyagol]

ACPI = Control how much information the APIC subsystem generates
when booting the kernel

APIC = Prevent the kernel from using any of the IOAPICs that might be
present in the system.

running with pci=noapci is for power Interface
running with noapic is for the replacement for the old PIC chip that used to come on motherboards that allowed you to setup nterrupts
sometimes motherboards come with small defects ( called bugs ) and loading the kernel without
the this apic is the only way to load you're system. my PC at home would not run CentOS 5 smp kernel or Fedora 5,6,7,8
without setting noapic.the way to test it is to edit the grub menulist while booting and adding noapic at the end

[code]kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5 ro root=LABEL=/1 noapic[/code]

[h8dk97]

Thanks. I read somewhere that the problem I had was due to a bug in that specific version of kernel, I've updated the kernel and will give it few weeks and see. If the new kernel doesn't fix it I'll try your solution.