8139too driver has problem?

[SHIBUYA Katsutoshi]

Many days have been passed, so no one may remember this article, but I 
will conclude this for someone searching informations later.

On 2004.2.6, at 15:27 Asia/Tokyo, SHIBUYA Katsutoshi wrote:
> Hi.  I'm using RTL8139 based NIC and having a trouble.
> It works just fine at day-time but it frequentry stops working at 
> midnight (23:00-6:00 varing day by day).
> When it occurs, all communications via eth0 device don't work; ping 
> from the host to another host, ping from another host to the host, ssh 
> connections, smtp connections etc.
> When I unplug the ethernet RJ45 connector once and plug it again, it 
> becomes work well again.
> Once I tried "/sbin/ifdown eth0" then "/sbin/ifup eth0", but the 
> device was still stalled.
> Rebooting the Linux the connection became OK.
> Watching the LED on the ethernet HUB, the link looks like OK and has 
> signals.
> No messages are left on /var/log/messages, /var/log/secure, 
> /var/log/cron around that moment.
> Finally I created a small script which checks the ping result to the 
> neighbor host and if failed reboot the Fedora. (since I am tired to be 
> a sentry all the night.)
>
> I found a document mentioning about such problem;
> http://linux24.sourceforge.net
> Here they say "RTL 8139 cards sometimes stop responding. Both drivers 
> don't handle this quite good enough yet."
> but in the "Fixed" section...
>
> How do you think about this problem?  My host has been cracked every 
> night?  Or 8139too driver still has problem?
> How can I fight against it?
> Any suggestions appreciated.
>
> #I'm sorry with my poor english...

First of all, thanks to Scott, mwafkowski and Richard for your valued 
suggestions.

While the connection was down, I tried "modprobe -r 8139too" and 
"modprobe 8139too" but the line did not become live.
After that, I changed my broadband router which is connected to the 
machine (by another reason; it was old and poor on speed).  Then, the 
problem had gone away!
I'm not sure but the old router might have problem.

However, I understood that the 8139 chip is not a good choice, I'll 
replace it later.
---
SHIBUYA Katsutoshi (shibuya at bu-denken.co.jp)