Subject: Re: rtl8139: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out

From: Marcus Better <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:32:59 +0200

(For those haven't followed, this is about
  http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.network/38493
)

Francois Romieu wrote:
> Marcus Better <[email-masked]> :
>> I'm seeing this problem on my Acer Travelmate 223X laptop with built-in
>> Realtek 8139: The ethernet stops working, usually after at most a few
>> minutes operation.

> In a better world, you would narrow the suspect with a git bissect [1]
> between v2.6.15 and v2.6.16.

I did, and the winner after 13 reboots is...

commit de227f5f32775d86e5c780a7cffdd2e08574f7fb
Author: Dave Airlie <airlied@starflyer.(none)>
Date:   Wed Jan 25 15:31:43 2006 +1100

    drm: i915 patches from Tungsten Graphics

    Fix CMDBUFFER path, add heap destroy and flesh out sarea for rotation
    (Tungsten Graphics)

    From: Alan Hourihane <[email-masked]>
    Signed-off-by: Dave Airlie <[email-masked]>

I didn't believe it at first either, but blacklisting the i915 module
actually fixes the problem. Now that I know what to look for, I notice
that the network errors always started cropping up after X11 started.

Wonder what's going on here. Why is the graphics driver killing my network?

Marcus