NIC periodically stops working until reboot

CZa

Hello all,

I have been using pfsense for a while but I'm still a newbie.

My setup consists of 3 NICs: 1 integrated in the motherboard and 2 connected to the PCIe and PCI buses. Normally, everything works fine. However, from time to time, the integrated NIC stops working and I cannot re-enable it unless I reboot the system. This is not an ideal solution, as it requires interrupting the operation of the other 2 NICs, which otherwise are working fine.

Usually, when the NIC stops working, the following messages appear in the logs (latest message first):

May 15 00:26:55	kernel		em0: Unable to initialize the hardware
May 15 00:26:55	kernel		em0: Hardware Initialization Failed
May 15 00:26:55	kernel		em0: Watchdog timeout -- resetting

The NIC appears as active:

ifconfig em0
em0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=209b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC>
        ether 68:05:ca:87:e7:38
        hwaddr 68:05:ca:87:e7:38
        inet6 fe80::6a05:caff:fe87:e738%em0 prefixlen 64 tentative scopeid 0x1
        inet 192.168.2.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.2.255
        nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
        media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
        status: active

But it doesn't work:

ping 192.168.2.2
PING 192.168.2.2 (192.168.2.2): 56 data bytes
ping: sendto: Host is down
ping: sendto: Host is down
ping: sendto: Host is down
ping: sendto: Host is down

Nothing changes if I turn it down and back up with ifconfig and/or netif.

I have been searching for a solution for a while but I haven't found anything that works.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Regards
CZa

Gertjan

@cza

Could be many things, like a physical disconnection in the plug.
Don't loose your time with it.
If possible, disable this NIC in the BIOS and add another single or double NIC card.

bmeeks

Agree with @Gertjan . This is almost certainly a hardware issue, so you will either need to disable the on-board NIC and replace it with another of some type in an empty card slot, or else replace the motherboard where the on-board NIC resides.

stephenw10

Yup Watchdog timeout on em is not something known that can be worked around easily.

CZa

Thank you all for your replies.

It is really disappointing that there is no way to reset the NIC without having to reboot. I suppose I will have to follow your suggestions and replace it.

Regards,
CZa

JKnott

@cza

There is the ifconfig command to shut and open an interface, which might help. However, i also suspect it's a hardware issue.