[c-nsp] Catalyst 3750G + Broadcom NIC issues

[Tristan Gulyas]

Howdy all,

I've run into a little issue of late with Cisco 3750G-24T and -24TS switches 
and Broadcom NeXtreme Gigabit controllers supplied onboard the Compaq d530 
small form factor systems under Linux.

The issue: machines lose link and the NIC freezes up after a few days of 
inactivity.  Reloading the module (which shuts down the controller and 
restarts it) seems to help.  I even had an issue the other day where the 
switch would not provide link at all unless the port was set to 100mbit and 
that didn't last long, either.

Cabling is freshly unpacked Cat5e - I've had no troubles with the same cable 
drop on my PowerBook G4.

These problems are not present on the 6500 10/100 or Gigabit-capable blades 
we also connect to, nor the 10Mbit HP hubs we have lying around.

I've tried manual and automatic settings but with no avail.  Reloading the 
switch doesn't help.

I've seen the same results with 12.2(2)SE3, a beta of 12.2(25)SE and 
12.1(19)EA1.

Configuration from the switch ports is as follows:

Linux console simply reports:

tg3: eth0: Link is down.

Card in kernel reports:

eth0: Tigon3 [partno(BCM95782A50) rev 3003 PHY(5705)] (PCI:33MHz:32-bit) 
10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet 00:0e:7f:2a:34:43

No changes occur at either end that seem to trigger this.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

thanks,

.t

PS. If anyone has used any of the new Fluke network assistant devices with 
these switches and has had issues obtaining link for more than 2 seconds, 
let me know...