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Troubleshooting: Broadcom NetXtreme™ Gigabit Ethernet Controller User Guide

Hardware Diagnostics
Checking Port LEDs
Troubleshooting Checklist
Checking if Correct Drivers are Loaded
Testing Network Connectivity
Software Problems and Solutions


Hardware Diagnostics

Loopback diagnostic tests are available for testing the adapter hardware under Windows. These tests provide access to the adapter's internal/external diagnostics, where packet information is transmitted across the physical link (for DOS applications, refer to DOS Diagnostic User's Guide).

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Checking Port LEDs

BCM5788 Adapters

The adapter has four LEDs, one for each port speed option (10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 1 Gbps), and one for Activity. The three port speed LEDs indicate active links, and the Activity LED indicates data transfer status. After the driver is loaded and the cables are connected properly, the appropriate speed LED is lit and the data LED is on if data traffic is present.

Before the port LEDs can provide troubleshooting information, the adapter must be connected to the network (see Installing the Hardware), and the network drivers for your particular operating system must be installed.

  1. Verify that the adapter driver software has been installed and that the adapter is connected to a network.

  2. Check to see that the adapter status LEDs operate as described in the following table:

    Table 2. Gigabit Ethernet Port LED Activity

LED State Description
1000 On Good Gigabit Ethernet link.
Off No 1000-Mbps link; possible link at different speed, possible bad cable, bad connector, or configuration mismatch.
100 On Good 100-Mbps Fast Ethernet link.
Off No 100-Mbps link; possible link at different speed, possible bad cable, bad connector, or configuration mismatch.
10 On Good 10-Mbps Fast Ethernet link.
Off No 10-Mbps link; possible link at different speed, possible bad cable, bad connector, or configuration mismatch.
ACT Blinking Brief bursts of data detected on the port.
On Streams of data detected on the port.
Off No data detected on the port.

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Troubleshooting Checklist

CAUTION: Before opening the cabinet of your system for removing or inserting the adapter, please review all precautions outlined under Safety Precautions.

The following checklist provides recommended actions to take to resolve problems installing the Gigabit Ethernet Controller or running it in your system.

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Checking if Correct Drivers are Loaded

The following section describes how to check if the correct drivers are loaded for Windows, NetWare, and Linux.

Linux

To verify that the bcm5700.o driver is loaded properly, run

lsmod

If the driver is loaded, a line similar to the one below appears, where <size> is the size of the driver in bytes, and <n> is the number of adapters configured.

Module
Size
Used by
BCM5700
<size>
<n>

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Testing Network Connectivity

The following section describes how to test network connectivity for Windows 2000, Windows XP/Server 2003, NetWare, and Linux.

NOTE: Ensure that when using forced link speeds, that both the adapter and switch are forced to the same speed OR at least one link partner is configured for Auto-negotiation.

Windows

Use the ping command to determine if network connectivity is working.

  1. Select Run from the Windows Control Panel, this displays the Run command window.

  2. Type cmd and click OK.
  3. Type ipconfig /all to display the command window.

  4. Type ping <IP address> from the command line, then press Enter.
    This displays the network connectivity information.

NetWare

Ping an IP host on the network to verify connection has been established:

From the command line, type ping <IP address>, then press Enter.
This will display the packet send/receive status.

Linux

To verify that the Ethernet interface is up and running, run 'ifconfig' to check the status of the Ethernet interface. 'netstat -i' can also be used to check the statistics on the Ethernet interface. Consult manual pages for more information on 'ifconfig' and 'netstat'.

Ping an IP host on the network to verify connection has been established:

From the command line, type ping <IP address>, then press Enter.
This will display the packet send/receive status.

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Software Problems and Solutions

This section provides a list of known software problems and solutions for the operating systems below.

Windows 2000 and Windows XP/Server 2003

The following table lists know problems and solutions using Windows 2000 or Windows XP/Server 2003:

Problem: Able to create Broadcom LAC connections icons having same name under network properties menu.

Solution: In Windows 2000, each network adapter installed properly will have an icon in Network Properties window. The name of the icon is usually in the form of "Local Area Connection ##" and where ## is a number starting from 1. The names of icon can be changed by right clicking the icon and selecting rename. The name of the icon is only meaningful to the Network Properties window. Sometimes the system administrators will rename these icons to easily differentiate the network connections.

Problem: IP address is configurable on a member of the team.

Solution: When a team is created, the TCP/IP properties for the adapters are unselected. The user can manually select and configure TCP/IP properties of the adapters and configure an IP address. This is a limitation of the Windows 2000 network installation paradigm, where this invalid configuration is still allowed.

Linux

The following table lists known problems and solutions using Linux:

Linux-Core

Problem: Compiling the driver fails under SuSE's 7.x.

Solution: If compiling the driver under SuSE's 7.x distributions and errors are reported, follow the general guidelines below to rebuild the kernel source tree:

cd /usr/src/linux-<kernel_version>.SuSE
cp /boot/vmlinuz.config .config
cp /boot/vmlinuz.version.h include/linux/version.h
cp /boot/vmlinuz.autoconf.h include/linux/autoconf.h
make oldconfig
make dep

where <kernel_version> is the actual kernel version used in the SuSE distribution.
Example: /usr/src/linux-2.4.4.SuSE

Now you will need to rebuild the bcm5700 module. You may need to `make clean` if you attempted to build the driver before the previous steps.

make clean
make
make install

Problem: Zero copy performance is low on Red Hat 7.1.

Solution: Red Hat 7.1 loads the ipchains module by default. IPCHAINS is not
compatible with Zero Copy. Remove the IPCHAINS module and disable IPCHAINS
from the system run level.

Example:

rmmod ipchains
chkconfig ipchains off

Broadcom Boot Agent

The following table lists known Broadcom Boot Agent problems and solutions:

Problem: Unable to obtain network settings through DHCP using PXE.

Solution: For proper operation make sure that the STP (spanning tree protocol) is disabled or portfast mode (for Cisco) is enabled on the port to which the PXE client is connected. For instance, set spantree portfast 4/12 enable.

Microsoft Remote Installation Service(RIS) Instructions

Problem: Microsoft Remote Installation Service (RIS) installation fails for both Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Solution: Refer to Microsoft Article Q246184, "How to Add Third-Party OEM Network Adapters to RIS Installations."

To deploy a Windows 2000 image

  1. Verify that the Windows 2000 RIS server has Service Pack 3 or later installed.
  2. Follow the steps described in Microsoft Article Q246184 article at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b246184.
  3. If the Windows 2000 RIS server does not have Service Pack 3 or later installed, modify the b57w2k.inf file as described below. In the .inf file that is to be placed in the RemoteInstall\Setup\Language\Images\Dir_Name\i386 folder, remove NTx86.5.1 in two lines (see the following example).
    Original Revised

    [Manufacturer]
    %BRCM% = Broadcom, NTx86.5.1

    [ControlFlags]
    ExcludeFromSelect = *

    [Broadcom]

    [Manufacturer]
    %BRCM% = Broadcom

    [ControlFlags]
    ExcludeFromSelect = *

    [Broadcom]

  4. Follow the steps in the Microsoft Article Q246184 article at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b246184, skipping step 1 as this has been done above.

To deploy a Windows XP image

  1. Modify the b57xp32.inf file.
  2. In the .inf file that is to be placed in the RemoteInstall\Setup\Language\Images\Dir_Name\i386 folder, remove NTx86.5.1 in two lines (see the following example).
    Original Revised

    [Manufacturer]
    %BRCM% = Broadcom, NTx86.5.1

    [ControlFlags]
    ExcludeFromSelect = *

    [Broadcom.NTx86.5.1]

    [Manufacturer]
    %BRCM% = Broadcom

    [ControlFlags]
    ExcludeFromSelect = *

    [Broadcom]

  1. Follow the steps in the Microsoft Article Q246184 article at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b246184, skipping step 1, as this has been done above.

Miscellaneous

The following table lists known miscellaneous problems and solutions:

Problem: When the bus on the system is operating at PCI mode, Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet will perform at PCI mode if it is added by Hot Plug.

Solution: When the system is booted up without any adapter, the bus will operate at the lowest mode which is PCI. This problem can be overcome by rebooting the system.

Problem: The Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Controller may not perform at optimal level when it is added by Hot Plug on some system.

Solution: This is because the system BIOS in some system does not set the cache line size and the latency timer, after the adapter is added by Hot Plug. This problem can be overcome by rebooting the system.

Problem: The Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Controller can not be seen on the PCI BUS.

Solution: This is because some of the older servers are advertising themselves as PCI-X capable systems. This causes the NetXtreme network adapter to operate in PCI-X mode; therefore; not to be seen by the PCI bus. This problem can be overcome by configuring the firmware to operate in forced pci mode. Refer to b57diag for configuration instructions.


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