PCI network card. IRQ issue?

xaos5 · 01-22-2007, 04:15 AM

I'm trying to setup a router on a PC-CHIPS m789CG (v3.0a) with debian etch and am having issues setting up my PCI Realtek 8169 Gigabit Ethernet card. I want to believe its an IRQ conflict because when installed it renders my via onboard useless (ifconfig eth1 up fails like its not there). Both network interfaces have been tested and work fine by themselves. I receive random pauses in the kernel when the pci card is installed. Im clueless on where to start for an IRQ conflict.

budgie9 · 01-22-2007, 01:46 PM

I would suggest you try the following. Firstly check your m/board manual to see what, if any, slots are 'shared' you need to avoid putting cards into shared slots if it's already in use if at all possible.
Generally you will find the AGP slot shared with slot 1. If you have an AGP card then don't use slot 1.
Try to place any cards you have well away from the others, ie. seperate them if you can. More so if you don't know if slots are shared or not.
When you have done this, I would further suggest you add cards one at a time here, then set the BIOs address before adding another, Now set in the BIOS the IRQ address you want to use for that card.
Note Some cards still like to be on a set IRQ address more so the older ones but they are still around. So watch for that in the card's instructions.

Once you have your cards installed you can use the BIOS settings to change the addresses, of the cards.

But as mentioned try to do this one card at a time. Make notes of the IRQs and watch what your computer tells you is at an address when it fires up. You can then try to move conflicting cards on the m/board or adjust the BIOS settings again.
Hope this helps.

xaos5 · 01-23-2007, 03:46 AM

I found some patches that may apply to my problem in the mm patchset. I will follow your advie after I try this. It looks like my ethernet controller, onboard vga, and usb controller are all on IRQ 11:

Code:

# lspci -v |grep IRQ |sort
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 255
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 5
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 7

Code:

# lspci -v
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8623 [Apollo CLE266]
        Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. Unknown device 0000
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 8
        Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
        Capabilities: [a0] AGP version 2.0
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8633 [Apollo Pro266 AGP] (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
        Memory behind bridge: dde00000-dfefffff
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: d5d00000-ddcfffff
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
        I/O ports at e400 [size=32]
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 7
        I/O ports at e800 [size=32]
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 5
        I/O ports at ec00 [size=32]
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
        Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
        Memory at dfffff00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
        Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. Unknown device 0000
        Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
        Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT8233/A/C/VT8235 PIPC Bus Master IDE
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 255
        I/O ports at fc00 [size=16]
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 74)
        Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine II] Embeded Ethernet Controller on VT8235
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
        I/O ports at e000 [size=256]
        Memory at dffffe00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8623 [Apollo CLE266] integrated CastleRock graphics (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8623 [Apollo CLE266] integrated CastleRock graphics
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
        Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
        Memory at de000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Expansion ROM at dfef0000 [disabled] [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [70] AGP version 2.0

EDIT:
while waiting for my kernel to compile, I decided to read the manual (haven't needed to do that in years and now I remember why). My bios settings don't seem to allow changing IRQ numbers, only disabling and enabling a couple like vga and parallel port. I'm going to look more into interrupts since I don't have to much experience with them.

EDIT2: how many devices can share the same interrupts? in this case IRQ 11 seems to have a limit of 3.