Subject: Re: Update on e1000 troubles (over-heating!)

From: Ben Greear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 00:07:37 -0700

Dave Hansen wrote:

> 
> I get some strange e1000 failures too.  It usually involves the watchdog 
> kicking them back into order, but sometimes they'll stay offline for a 
> while.  Heat would explain it, though, because it only happens when I'm 
> actually using the cards for a benchmark.  I figured that it was either 
> my cables, or a shoddy switch.
> 
> The new dual-port e1000 that I have doesn't seem to have this problem, 
> even though I'm running 4 times more traffic than the singles that I had.

That was exactly the behaviour I noticed.  I believe it's because when you
run two side-by-side, they cook each other (I'm assuming you didn't run
2 2-ports side-by-side)

Try strapping a fan on them somehow and I bet all your troubles go
away (and maybe your .ibm email will shame Intel into putting heat-sinks
and/or small fans on their NICs... ;)

(I ran two Netgear 302t NICs (tigon-3) side-by-side for 4 days at max speed, and they
  didn't drop a single packet, even though their heat-sinks were too hot to
  touch!)

Ben

-- 
Ben Greear <[email-masked]>       <Ben_Greear AT excite.com>
President of Candela Technologies Inc      http://www.candelatech.com
ScryMUD:  http://scry.wanfear.com     http://scry.wanfear.com/~greear