LAN/NIC problem

[jandvs]

I'm having the same issue with my 2GB board. Though I just realized it was the eth port. For weeks I've been installing different images and would always run into massive update/install (ie.. apt-get). Diet-Pi, ubuntu, debian. Finally got around to installing Remix and realized I had no internet connection. Tried 2 different cat6 6ft cables (the same ones I use for my laptop when i work from home). Turned on wifi and it worked fine.

After reading this thread, I grabbed a 4 strand cable and Remix started working fine over eth. Wrote the diet-pi image back to the card and now the install is running flawlessly.

Hope pine64 gives us a better solution to the issue. Really needed the gigabit to work this.

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Tried 2 different cat6 6ft cables (the same ones I use for my laptop when i work from home).  Turned on wifi and it worked fine.

After reading this thread, I grabbed a 4 strand cable and Remix started working fine over eth.  

Your cable is 2 piar , not 4 pair ?  On a RJ45 connector ?

... did you make the cable or purchase the cable ?   Say more about this please...

[pfeerick]

No, it isn't. When the driver is loaded, it either detects the carrier and runs at 1Gbps, or it doesn't and then it doesn't run at all. Anything done later won't change it. Unfortunately, I haven't enough time to experiment with this. But I hope someone finds out... Thanks.

When you say that... what happens when you run the "ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full" as a root user when the ethernet port is not working? Or is the bigger problem here that you need the ethernet running to be able to access the pine64 as you have it now? Running that command did change the link speed for me, and the pine64 dropped back to 100Mb/s mode, and was able to sustain at least a 10.8MB/s throughput (probably as near enough to the theoretical ideal of 12.5MB/s). The ethernet appeared to shut down completely for about 2 seconds, and then come back up again... (i.e. green led stopped blinking, yellow went out). Having said that, I haven't been luck enough to be able to reproduce the GbE issues ... yet!

Pre "ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full"

Code:

root@pine64:~# ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
        Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
        Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
        Supported pause frame use: No
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised link modes:  1000baseT/Full
        Advertised pause frame use: No
        Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Speed: 1000Mb/s
        Duplex: Full
        Port: MII
        PHYAD: 0
        Transceiver: external
        Auto-negotiation: on
        Link detected: yes

Post "ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full"

Code:

root@pine64:~# ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
        Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
        Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
        Supported pause frame use: No
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised link modes:  100baseT/Full
        Advertised pause frame use: No
        Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Speed: 100Mb/s
        Duplex: Full
        Port: MII
        PHYAD: 0
        Transceiver: external
        Auto-negotiation: on
        Link detected: yes

[jandvs]

Tried 2 different cat6 6ft cables (the same ones I use for my laptop when i work from home).  Turned on wifi and it worked fine.

After reading this thread, I grabbed a 4 strand cable and Remix started working fine over eth.  

Your cable is 2 piar , not 4 pair ?  On a RJ45 connector ?

... did you make the cable or purchase the cable ?   Say more about this please...

I made the cable years ago before there was gigabit.  100BaseT only used 2 twisted pair.  yes, it's rj45.  pins 1 2 3 6

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Tried 2 different cat6 6ft cables (the same ones I use for my laptop when i work from home).  Turned on wifi and it worked fine.

After reading this thread, I grabbed a 4 strand cable and Remix started working fine over eth.  

Your cable is 2 piar , not 4 pair ?  On a RJ45 connector ?

... did you make the cable or purchase the cable ?   Say more about this please...

I made the cable years ago before there was gigabit.  100BaseT only used 2 twisted pair.  yes, it's rj45.  pins 1 2 3 6

Thank you so much for this contribution. Making a two(2) pair cable is a really good hardware work-around for the GbE problem in general.  After I read your post I made a similar cable by removing the blue and brown pairs. That forces the negotiation to go into high-speed ethernet (100 /ful) without the software intervention. Its not a fix, but it does make my GbE switch useful for the three machines I have at home that can use it.

[jandvs]

a friend of mine also has a pine64. said he never had a problem with Gigabt. I asked him how long the cable was, and he said about 6 inches. I don't have a cable that short on hand. if I get a chance I'll make one and see what that does. I also asked him to try a longer cable to see what t does to his.

[MarkHaysHarris777]

a friend of mine also has a pine64.  said he never had a problem with Gigabt.  I asked him how long the cable was, and he said about 6 inches.   I don't have a cable that short on hand.  if I get a chance I'll make one and see what that does.  I also asked him to try a longer cable to see what t does to his.

We know the shorter the better. 

... mine are 1M and I've tried 10 of them... new, Cat6.  its not a cabling problem (at least not on my end). The problem follows the board. I am getting ready (right now) to re-flow the solder connections to the eth port on the board that does not work. I'll let you know.

[tkaiser]

a friend of mine also has a pine64.  said he never had a problem with Gigabt.  I asked him how long the cable was, and he said about 6 inches.   I don't have a cable that short on hand.  if I get a chance I'll make one and see what that does.  I also asked him to try a longer cable to see what t does to his.

We know the shorter the better. 

That's wrong. Currently there exists exactly NO knowledge about the GbE problem since no debugging took place and devs were not able to reproduce the behaviour. The usual workaround known since months (switching back to Fast Ethernet) does work and if you're satisfied with 100 Mbits/sec slowing performance down you can use a cable of any length. There's also no need to use Cat6, Cat5e is sufficient and you can even use old boring Cat5 for Fast Ethernet and in most situations also with GbE.

I did all my GbE tests back in March and this week with the first Cat 5 cable I got in my hands (bought in 1996 since we upgraded a Sun server and a few PowerMacs from 10BaseT to 100 BaseT). Just to ensure 'worst cable possible'. No difference whether short Cat6 or long Cat5. It either works or not (and for me it always worked with both Pine64+ I tested with, next week getting another one to test)

GbE requires PHYs on both ends of the cable to negotiate clocks and duplex settings. It's obvious that there's something going wrong here (might be fixable in software but for that we need to be able to reproduce it first) and it's not the cable's fault unless the cable is really broken.

So choose the cable you want and if you run in a problem then add the appropriate ethtool call to /etc/rc.local to force Fast Ethernet. Maybe the problem is fixable in software (we had something similar with other Allwinner boards recently, there forcing the GbE PHY always into master mode resolved the problem), maybe not. No one knows currently. But it's known that cable length does NOT matter.

[MarkHaysHarris777]

a friend of mine also has a pine64.  said he never had a problem with Gigabt.  I asked him how long the cable was, and he said about 6 inches.   I don't have a cable that short on hand.  if I get a chance I'll make one and see what that does.  I also asked him to try a longer cable to see what t does to his.

We know the shorter the better. 

That's wrong. ...  But it's known that cable length does NOT matter.

Look above, do you see how you could improve your communication ( with just eleven words ) ;  all your wordy gobbiltygook confuses the issues, and does not help.

Not to mention that, you are technically incorrect, and your assessment has not taken into account that several of the people on this forum have already empirically demonstrated ( myself included ) that shorter cable lengths improve the situation with this problem with margin boards--- mostly because this is a marginal hardware problem on some boards, and some boards are worse (or better) than others. 

You are apparently not aware of cross-talk.  I suggest you read up on it, because it dramatically affects this particular hardware problem. You must STOP contradicting the technical leaders of this forum; you often ( seems ) to deliberately confuse issues with your long-winded hype.

[tkaiser]

Ok, I stop investigating further this issue. @androsch: You don't need to send your Pine64 to me. Folks, have fun playing trial&error and taking polls. Good luck to all.