Intermittent system crash apparently due to ethernet card or driver

Fri Feb 5 17:32:50 UTC 2016

On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 9:58 AM, Seakat <seakat at orange.fr> wrote:

> From: Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> To: seakat at orange.fr,
>
> On 4 February 2016 at 16:34, Seakat <seakat at orange.fr> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I am running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (in French).
>>> The problem I'm reporting has occurred intermittently over the past 5
>>> months
>>> or so, with kernels 3.13.0-69 generic to 77 generic. It has occurred with
>>> two different modems,
>>> First with a TP-LINK Router/modem WN822N TL-WR842N (bought and used in
>>> China)
>>> Second with a France Telecom-Orange Livebox-198c, hired from Orange in
>>> France and used in France).
>>>
>>> I have a Acer ASPIRE 5735Z laptop (bought end 2009).
>>> Memory: 3.9 GO
>>> Processors: Pentium (R) Dual Core CPU T4200 @ 2 GHz x 2
>>> Video card: Mobile INTEL (R) GM45 Express chip set x86/MMX/SSE2
>>> OS: 32 bits
>>> Disk 287.9 Go
>>>
>>> Crashes occur when I have cable connection to a modem, The screen
>>> switches
>>> to terminal mode and the machine stops;
>>> What is written on the screen varies slightly, but generally starts with:
>>> "[1350796098] BUG - Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer reference at
>>> 0000050d
>>> Sky2_hw_error_+0x126/0x15c [sky2]"
>>>
>>> Lower down the screen I get a line with "kernel panic", and a couple of
>>> lines later it stops.
>>>
>>> I guess it's something to do with my Marvell YUKON network card or the
>>> driver, but what to do?
>>>
>> First see if there is a BIOS update available for the PC.
>>
>> Colin
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 10:53:31 -0600
>> From: Tommy Trussell <tommy.trussell at gmail.com>
>> To: "Ubuntu user technical support, not for general discussions"
>>         <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
>> Subject: Re: Intermittent system crash apparently due to ethernet card
>>         or driver
>> Message-ID:
>>         <
>> CABNyZMw+-6K6Wfmb7aKS3ZfA1qv4r6VF-A2BbO1-5Tagfg9-pA at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 10:40 AM, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> First see if there is a BIOS update available for the PC.
>>>
>>>
>> I agree with Colin, however a Google search for "Sky2_hw_error panic"
>> shows
>> a few bug reports regarding a network card in various circumstances. A
>> kernel panic suggests that the driver has failed very badly -- in a way
>> the
>> driver's programmers never intended -- OR the driver was not installed
>> correctly, or an essential kernel file got corrupted.
>>
>> I would also suggest you might want to also check the hardware basics --
>> are your network cables good, and inserted completely and correctly? Do
>> you
>> have some different cables to try? Are there other error indications
>> showing anywhere (some network ports have diagnostic lights that should
>> show particular colors, for instance)? It's really easy to damage a
>> network
>> cable or port in a non-obvious way, for example. A crimp in the cable, a
>> broken wire, a bent pin in the jack ... some of these things can cripple a
>> signal somewhat but not completely.
>>
>> If you have another network card available, maybe even a different brand
>> one using a different linux driver, it might be worth trying, but be sure
>> to rule out the other potential problems too.
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>>
>> Thank you very much Colin and Tommy.
>
> After your suggestions, I did some googling I found some stuff about sky2
> problems being associated an ACER ASPIRE 5735 (mine in 5735Z) with BIOS v.
> 1.08, and a way to get round this was to upgrade to v.1.10.
> I photographed one or my crash pages
> http://acro.pagespro-orange.fr/Temp/IMG_0387.JPG . It says I have BIOS v.
> 1.13. Could it have been updated by an automatic Windows XP update?
>
> Anyway, does the crash page give any info to anyone smarter than me that
> could be useful to understanding or even solving the problem?
> I think the problem can't be the cable, as I used different cables in
> China and France, as well as different modems/gateways. I haven't been able
> to try it with a different ethernet card, yet.
>
> Cheers, Seakat
>

I am not aware of a way Windows can update your BIOS but I suppose it might
be possible. However it seems more likely the BIOS was updated some other
way, AND that your errors are not the same one fixed with that older BIOS.
Though it might not hurt to check the BIOS version directly (by booting
into it and looking) and also check with ACER to see if there's an even
newer one than you have. You might also check in ACER documentation etc. to
see if there are any BIOS settings that might affect the Ethernet port.

Since the Ethernet is built in (a laptop) I can understand why you might
not have tried a different card. (I was assuming a desktop system.) You
might try some searches for a fix or a workaround for that particular
laptop, maybe even contacting ACER directly for support, though in my
experience most vendors will only talk to customers about Windows issues.

I mentioned checking the cables only because one of the bug reports I saw
(from a Google search) implied the kernel panic occurred under heavy
network load. To me that implies there could be a "handshaking" issue
between the client and the host, hence that's why I suggested checking the
cable.

Are you able to make the same connection via wireless? That might be
another potential workaround.

There also exist USB to Ethernet adapters, so if it turns out your built-in
Ethernet port is too buggy you can bypass it without having to go to a more
extreme solution.
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