On Wed, 2013-07-24 at 08:39 -0700, Peter LaDow wrote:

A bit of history that may help.  We were using an e100 (an 82559)
part, but Intel EOL'd that part so we picked up the 82540EP (which
they have also recently EOL'd).  The e100 driver uses a different DMA
model.  It uses pci_map_single/pci_unmap_single along with
pci_dma_sync_single_for* calls (as well as other PCI calls).  The
e1000 driver, however, does not use the pci_* calls.  We have never
had a problem with the e100 parts.  I don't suppose the use of
pci_map_* vs dma_map_* makes a difference does it?

No, they resolve to the same thing under the hood. Did you do other
changes ? Could it be another unrelated kernel bug causing something
like use-after-free of network buffer or similar oddity unrelated to the
network driver ?

Have you tried with different kernel versions ?

Cheers,
Ben.