r8169: freeze at high speeds

Hello,


I have a problem where my machine freezes as soon as I send it data at
high speeds. It works perfectly fine when transferring files slowly
(over the internet for instance). But after sending some data for a few
seconds at relatively high speed (let's say >10MB/sec), the whole
machine just freezes. I've had it happen at relatively low speeds too
(1MB/sec), but it's much less frequent. When I stick to really slow
speeds, I can work without problems for days.

I'm using the latest Debian kernel, which is based on 2.6.16.17 at the
moment.

btw: I tried using ethtool to force it on 100Mbit, but it seems to have
little effect (it stays put on 1000Mbit). Autonegotiation stays "on"
even after trying to switch it off manually.

The machine is a nforce2-based k7 (no SMP). One possibly weird thing is
that my SATA controller and my RT8169 are both on the same PCI card
(behind a PCI bridge) - lspci is attached.

I tried the patch that Francois Romieu posted on 2006-04-18, but it
still locks up. I also tried the r1000 driver from Realtek themselves,
but that one locks up too.

btw2: I do often use nvidia's binary driver, but I made sure it had
never been loaded when testing (fresh reboot, without nvidia.ko ever
being loaded).

Is this a known issue? Can I do anything to track down this bug?


Thank you,


-- Mourad DC