I just experienced a hardware failure on my Peg2 concerning the ethernet 10/100 port.
I'll write down the story so you can make sure i'm not fancying the whole stuff.

It all started when my Linksys DSL modem/router started disconnecting me from the web on a regular basis, several times a day. I got facing a dilemna... was it the router itself ? my phone line ? but after all that was not so annoying as the router was reconnecting me pretty fast and i wasn't downloading much. A few weeks later the router's ethernet ports started disconnecting as well, with the ethernet leds flashing sometimes and the connection going up and down all the time. The wireless connection was still fine though, still rock solid. The day after i noticed it the ethernet ports stopped working all of a sudden, all my computers hooked on it (the pegasos 2 (using the onboard ethernet), a laptop PC, an iBook G4 (wireless) and a SGI Octane) lost the connection. I tried to reset the router, flashed the firmware, tried everything i could do but without success. The wireless connection was still doing good though. I came to the conclusion that the ethernet part of the router, the switch, was dead. I purchased another router, another model, same brand. It worked fine, as it was supposed to do. That was last week.
Yesterday it started messing up again. The internet DSL connection was disconnecting all the time and couldn't stay online for more than a few minutes. I started investigating on the ISP and telecom sides but without any clue, my phone line got tested successfully and my ISP was absolutely sure that everything was fine on their side, so I started investigating on the router, refusing to believe in any hardware curse. The wireless connection was fine, the ethernet one too, it was only the DSL connection going nut. After some resets, setting up the whole stuff again and again I wasn't successful at all. I decided to try with the wireless connection only and unplugged all the ethernet hooked machines. And it worked, the DSL connection was rock solid again. I plugged every machine one after the other until I found out that the Pegasos was messing up with it everytime i hooked it on the router, causing the disconnections again.

so here i am, with an offline Pegasos (that destroyed the ethernet switch on my previous router), and looking for a realtek ethernet card to see if i can sort it out with a PCI one.

I think i've heard about similar things before, so i'd like to know if some of you ever experienced ethernet failures on their peggies, and how they could bypass the issue.

thanks for your comments and sorry for the long post. I just wanted to give as more details as possible.

I have no such problems. I am using my DSL Router(Netgear WGT624) since a year 24/7 with 1 Peg2 and 1-10 PCs and i got never ever any problems with disconnections.

@ThePlayer

thanks that helps me a lot lol !!!

well i'm not saying that this bug is available on all Pegasos 2 boards, i'm not even suggesting that this can happen on yours or other Pegs, it just happened to mine. My Peg got hooked on my previous router since ages without any problem, it just appeared all of a sudden and I heard one or two similar issues before.

SoundSquare,

I would be really interested to know exactly what the problem is.

First, You do not write what kind of operating system You do run on your Pegasos. So, what are you running on the Pegasos machine ?

An easy way to see if the ethernet works stable can be to make your own small network. As what it seems from what you are writing, you seems to have several computers, You could perhaps just create a small network between a few computers using a switch, which dont have any connection with the router you use for the internet connection. Have it runnning for a while and see if it will be working stable or unstable.

I have very difficult to see how any kind of hardware fault should cause what you are describing, but who knows. Maybe, possible some faulty cables or some kind of power leak ?

Anyway, until You know whats causing the problem, its of course only guesswork.

What makes you think it's a hw issue? I'd say it's more likely to be a sw issue (your router dying was probably a coincidence) .. output enough junk and many routers will eventually crash...

However, one likely hw candidate would be your PSU .. if it doesn't deliver steady power all kinds of things could happen!


- CISC

@Gunne and CISC

thanks for taking my issue into consideration, i appreciate that. Now about your questions and comment.

- ethernet cables were tested and swapped with brand new ones, it didn't solve the issue. It cannot be a cable problem.

- all my machines are part of a LAN already. The switch i use is the embedded router's switch. I don't think the problem with my previous router was a coincidence as the problem is back with the new router.

- I'm running MorphOS, Ubuntu and Gentoo on the Peg, but agaiin, i have this issue even when the Pegasos is off. As you know the ethernet port is still on even if the machine is off as long as you don't unplug the power cord properly. It cannot be a software problem.

- The other machines are all fine, the LAN switch goes crazy (the ethernet link going up and down) only if the Pegasos is plugged on it. Without the Peg everything is doing fine.

- my case and PSU are part of a case coming from the swiss retailer RELEC, they have quite a solid reputation of testing their product with the Pegasos, I had this case/PSU for 5 months now and had no problem with it before. I'll do some further PSU testing though.

Again, i'll soon make a test with a PCI ethernet card to see if the problem still happens when the Pegasos is plugged on the switch/router. As part of my job i'm a computer/network techie and I just try to make sure that i do some cross testing to try to isolate the cause as i'm used to do. I'll keep you tuned about it.