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Realtek RTL8102E registers

DISCUSSION Ivan Frederiks 2 participants 3 messages Oct 29, 2013 – Nov 6, 2013

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#0 lore raw

Hello!

I met troubles with RTL8102E operation (you can find detailed description below). I suppose that those troubles are related to chip misconfiguration. Maybe you have access to RTL8102E register description? If yes, would you be so kind to share it with me?

Thank you in advance,

Ivan Frederiks
Embedded developer
Speech Technology Center

Phone: +7-812-331-0665, ext. 6123, 6942
Fax: +7-812-327-9297

P.S.

Issue description:
I'm currently working with a custom motherboard equipped with 2 RTL8102E ICs and an Intel x86 SOM. SOM runs 32-bit Linux (Arch or Ubuntu). By default I use r8169 driver. I know that Ethernet link is up (I checked it with an oscilloscope and I see that RTL8102E link LEDs are on). In most cases everything works fine. But sometimes driver reports that link is down. After a power cycle driver reports, that link is up. When I replace driver with r8101, it always reports that link is up, but I observe other issues.

#1 lore raw

Ivan Frederiks <[email protected]> :
[...]

Quoted 1 line

Maybe you have access to RTL8102E register description ?

No.

Realtek's hardware documentation policy isn't exactly opened. Your hardware vendor may help.

[...]

Quoted 1 line

Issue description:

[snip]

kernel version and r81xx XID value as it should appear in dmesg would be welcome.

Signature · 1 line
Ueimor
#2 lore raw

Hello Francois,

I found solution for the issue that I described earlier: one has to set correct MAC-address before bringing up the interface.

On my board RTL8102E works without EEPROM, so initial MAC-address value is unpredictable. In many cases this value has multicast bit set to 1. This fact breaks driver and (or) TCP stack operation:
* r8169 reports that link is down
* r8101 reports that link is OK, but Linux TCP stack ignores packets with multicast destination MAC

Hope this info would be useful. BTW, I suppose that driver could have some kind of protection against such situations.

Quoted 9 lines · Francois Romieu

Ivan Frederiks <[email protected]> :
[...]

Quoted 1 line

Maybe you have access to RTL8102E register description ?

No.

Realtek's hardware documentation policy isn't exactly opened. Your hardware vendor may help.

Quoted 7 lines

[...]

Quoted 1 line

Issue description:

[snip]

kernel version and r81xx XID value as it should appear in dmesg would be welcome.

--
Best regards,

Ivan Frederiks
Embedded developer
Speech Technology Center

Phone: +7-812-331-0665, ext. 6123, 6942
Fax: +7-812-327-9297