Re: Lenovo X60 em workaround

On 1/22/07, Jack Vogel <jfvogel_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/22/07, Gleb Smirnoff <glebius_at_freebsd.org> wrote:
> >   Jack,
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 02:35:17PM -0800, Jack Vogel wrote:
> > J> >> Since this was just seen, and the patch below validated as working I
> > J> >wanted
> > J> >> to send general email to capture this:
> > J> >>
> > J> >> The Lenovo X60 can have issues with long ping times, this is a KNOWN
> > J> >> hardware problem, and Intel is working with IBM/Lenovo, a final 'fix' has
> > J> >> not been decided on yet. Nevertheless, the patch below will work, but
> > J> >> I do not want to check it in as its still temporary.
> > J> >>
> > J> >> Address questions to me,
> > J> >
> > J> >Okay, I have a question. Could you elaborate on just what the problem is?
> > J> >(I mean, since it's KNOWN and all...) I'm just having a hard time figuring
> > J> >out what problem could possibly be fixed by setting the RX interrupt
> > J> >delay timer to a non-zero value (especially since elsewhere in the em(4)
> > J> >source it says that doing so is a Bad Thing (tm)).
> > J>
> > J> saying its known to be a problem doesnt mean its cause is known :)
> > J> They discovered that setting this eliminated the problem, but we
> > J> immediately pointed out that this is, as you pointed out, a Bad
> > J> Thing on other hardware, so the investigation continues, there is
> > J> always a communication lag on these kind of things, so I dont know
> > J> if it has been resolved yet or not.
> > J>
> > J> I just dont think this patch will become the final way to solve this,
> > J> but we shall see :)
> >
> > Good to know that there is progress on this. Thanks! I will try the patch
> > on my Lenovo T60 notebook, where the problem is also present. AFAIK, it
> > is present on any Lenovo notebook with 82573 NIC.
> >
> > Can you please acknowledge that another bug with Lenovo + em(4) is known? I
> > mean the problem, that em(4) isn't initialized properly on kernel boot, if
> > the link is down. I have already reported this to you, and you said that
> > I probably have bad hardware. Since that time, I've found several similar
> > reports about Lenovo notebooks and em(4) driver in FreeBSD.
>
> Hey Gleb,
>
> Acknowledge... I can do better than that, I have a fix for this problem, and
> its not temporary. Here is the code change (not a patch, I'm very busy),
> its in hardware_init, should be obvious how to patch:
>
>        /* Make sure we have a good EEPROM before we read from it */
>         if (e1000_validate_nvm_checksum(&adapter->hw) < 0) {
>                 /*
>                 ** Some PCI-E parts fail the first check due to
>                 ** the link being in sleep state, call it again,
>                 ** if it fails a second time its a real issue.
>                 */
>                 if (e1000_validate_nvm_checksum(&adapter->hw) < 0) {
>                         device_printf(dev,
>                             "The EEPROM Checksum Is Not Valid\n");
>                         return (EIO);
>                 }
>         }
>
> This is already checked into my code base at Intel, I've just been too
> busy to do anything with it, be my guest if you wish to check it in after
> testing...
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jack
>

LOL, opps, I just realized, this code reflects the new shared code
that I am in the process of releasing, in order for this to work in
6.2 change 'e1000_validate_nvm_checksum' to
'em_validate_eeprom_checksum' and all should be clear :)

Jack