Enabling gigabit mode on nic
 

I have a MSI K7N2 Delta2 motherboard with a NVidia Gigabit NIC on the mb. I am running Mandriva 2006 with the stock kernel 2.6.12-12mdk. It is useing the forcedeth driver for the nic, but I have no idea how to get it to operate in gigabit mode. I purchased a gigabit switch but it only connects at 100 Mb/s. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

You can verify the NIC has the functionality with:

ethtool eth0

The NIC should set speed automatically, however you can try setting it manually (assuming it's reported as supported):

ethtool -s eth0 speed 1000

Check /var/log/messages and/or dmesg for errors. Also, make sure your cable is rated for Gig-E (Cat 5E or later). Check that all the ports on your switch are Gig-E rated (some have 100Mb ports), or try a different port.

Thanks for the reply. All the ports on the switch are suppose to support 10/100/1000 Mbs & I have a Cat5e patch cord. When I run ethtool eth0, I get:

Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: external
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: g
Wake-on: d
Link detected: yes


The manual which came with the mb says the the nic is Gigabit, but ethtool is not reporting that. Might that be an issue with the driver? /var/log/messages contains this line:

kernel: forcedeth.c: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version 0.32.

I wonder if there might be a newer version of the driver which would support Gig. Any other thoughts? Thanks again.

OK, the forcedeth driver you are using is not current; 0.54 is the version in my distribution (part of kernel 2.6.17). I would first suggest updating your kernel to the latest available from Mandriva - I can't find the mirrors on their annoying web site.

I upgraded my kernel to 2.6.17 & now have v 0.54 of the Forcedeth driver, but ethtool still only lists 100 Mbs.

Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: external
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: g
Wake-on: d
Link detected: yes

I guess I am probably out of luck. Thanks

I've been looking around MSI's site, and I've seen the onboard Ethernet specified as 10/100 or 10/100/1000, depending on the sub-model. The one with the 10/100 Ethernet is a "K7N2 Delta2-LSR", while there are two with the 10/100/1000 Ethernet: a "K7N2 Delta2 Platinum" and a "K7N2 Delta2-FSR".

You appear to have the LSR version.