8139too и Transmit timed out (NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0:)

Имеем старый компьютер (Pentium 188Mhz) и сетевую карту на чипе rtl8139c. При достаточно большом сетевом потоке через карту получаем "замирания" и глюки сети.

NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
Transmit timed out
eth0: Transmit timeout, status 0c 0005 c07f media 00. (что то вроде этого)

Как оказалось, проблема была в настройке BIOS, а именно:
PCI IRQ из "edge" установить в "level". И все!


Сей благословенный совет нашел здесь:
http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0403.1/1537.html

OK, just for completeness, this issue has been resolved.

In my BIOS, there was an option:

PCI IRQ (edge/level)

It was set to 'edge'. Setting to 'level' fixed the problem - the
8139too.c driver is perfectly OK (I am now on 2.6.4 with no
problems).

I would like to thank OGAWA Hirofumi for the time and debugging code
he done for me, and also successfully pinpointing the problem and
giving me an idea of what was going on and what to look for to fix
it.