uli526x annoyances

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When testing the Asrock775Twins-HDTV almost everything went ok. The keyword here is "almost". The built-in network card did not work. It seemed like the cable was not detected. As it is a Gigabit Ethernet I was not sure if the link auto-sensing could be creating the trouble (as the computer it is connected to a Fast Ethernet switch).

I had a cheap Realtek 8139 Fast Ethernet card on my desk so I installed and I got the system working. But just to be sure I decided to reconnect the network cable to the previously non-working built-in socket to see if it was still dead. To my amazament this time the interface worked.

Next day I'm getting rid of the Realtek NIC but then here it comes again. The built-in NIC does not work. A "dmesg" command output informs me the "Link is down" so it looks like a cable problem. I install back the Realtek and everything works again, including the built-in NIC.

I'm kind of tired with this fight so I just disable the built-in NIC and I am going to use the Realtek card. From this thread it seems 2.6.16 will fix this, but I won't keep my breath. It is working ok with SuSE though. However, I have not yet been able to get the graphics working with SuSE with this new board, and the worst thing is that sax2 freezes.

My first attempt to overclock the system to 3.0 Ghz seems a complete success with the standard Intel heatsink/fan.

The other detail I did not like about this motherboard is the heatsink is pushing very hard the processor agains the socket and the printed circuit appears bended several milimiters arond the socket, not a comforting wiew I should say. I hope it will be ok. Maybe this is not a problem if you are not using the standard heatsink that comes with you CPU.

Update: As Vicent reports in the comments, kernel 2.6.16 does not fix the problem. I am still using a PCI LAN card as a workaround. I reported the problem to Asrock support people but I did not get an answer on how to solve the issue.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi,

I have similar problems with an asrock 775 + D805 under debian 2.6.15.

From times to times, the interface will refuse to go up at boot.

I noticed however than rmmod'ing and modprobe'ing uli526x brings the link back up.

Still, after some time (a few minutes), the link will go down for no reason.

I tried 2.6.16, but it does not solve this issue :(

Best regards,

-- Vincent Stehlé
1:15 pm
misan said…
Hi Vicent,

Actually I kind of gave up and decided to use a PCI LAN card while the problem gets fixed. Thank you for the update the 2.6.16 does not cure the problem. It seems we will have to wait a bit more.
1:18 am
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