Extremely slow network perf with AR8131 NIC

[DWAM]

Hi

is there any known issue with Zentyal 2.2-4 and Atheros AR8131 Gigabit NIC ? I'm facing a situation where the nic installs fine but is slow when used and tends to freeze all traffic.

The server works fine but the speed on lan is less than 1Mb/s. It takes 4 minutes to copy 40 Mo to or from the server...

Obviously I tested several cables, and also 2 switches (one 100 Mb and one 1000 Mb). Same effect.

Here's detailed info on the hardware :

Code: [Select]

Motherboard : ASUS P5G41T-M LE
Ethernet card onboard MB : Atheros Comm. AR8131 Gigabit [1969:1063] Rev c0

lshw :
           *-network
                description: Ethernet interface
                product: AR8131 Gigabit Ethernet
                vendor: Atheros Communications
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
                logical name: eth0
                version: c0
                serial: e0:69:95:cb:e8:c6
                size: 1GB/s
                capacity: 1GB/s
                width: 64 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
                configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=atl1c driverversion=1.0.0.1-NAPI duplex=full firmware=N/A ip=192.168.6.2 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=1GB/s
                resources: irq:27 memory:febc0000-febfffff ioport:ec00(size=128)


Any help/info welcomed.

Thx

[DWAM]

I finally added a second NIC, a spare Realtek RTL8139 I had at hand. Declared as eth1 at 100 MBits. Works fine instantly after I de-activated the AR8131 seen as eth0 and reset the network configuration.

There is definately a problem with AR8131 and Zentyal.

I still hope there can be a better solution : I need gigabit and would like a clean setup. I don't like to have eth0 and eth1 declared when only eth1 works and I only need one for lan.

Thanks for clues, fixes, ideas, suggestions...

[robb]

I thought, I give google a go and came to a blogpost that discribes a problem with the atheros interface. It's not about Ubuntu 10.04 but it might be worth it to check.

Here some other options: http://joefleming.net/2010/05/26/atheros-ar8131-and-linux/
All seem to revert to driver issues...

There are a LOT of reports about troubles with this NIC. You may want to consider getting another NIC for your Zentyal server.

[DWAM]

Hi Robb and thanks for the reply

I've searched google before posting and found some articles like the one you pointed out. Btw, I think I'm not in the same situation :

- First I forgot to mention that I have tested the server with a Kubuntu 10.4 64 bits LiveCD and the Nic worked fine (no freeze, good speed)
- The system recognizes and reports the correct NIC (as seen with lspci -nn or lshw commands), so I think I do not miss drivers (like the guy in the article)

Before I try anything, I'd like :
- to be sure that Zentyal 2.2-4/Ubuntu 10.4 64 Bits supports this nic or not.
- to know if some of you use this nic successfully.

Thanks