The following reply was made to PR kern/29903; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Arto Selonen <arto@selonen.org>
To: gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org
Cc: Steve Woodford <scw@netbsd.org>
Subject: Re: kern/29903 (additional data point)
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 10:16:24 +0300 (EEST)

 Hi!
 
 After thinking about why the problem went away previously (as I mentioned
 in kern/22493), I decided to try something:
 
  	- system was running stock kernel, and systematically causing
  	  panics when pinged while rebooting
 
  	- stock kernel set aside; patched kernel (if_wm.c patch from
  	  kern/22493) booted, and never managed to panic again
 
  	- replace patched kernel with the wm panic kernel again;
  	  no more panics!
 
 So, it looks like the NIC is going to a strange state (I don't know 
 why/how), but once there it will persist across reboots. Note, that
 I have not tried shutting down the power, which might also clear the
 problematic state. Once in the problem state, running a patched kernel
 will clear the problem, after which stock kernels start working OK 
 again.
 
 I'm not sure if this is a HW issue with the specific card we have
 (HW failure?), or whether it is something that could be triggered by
 software (SW failure?). Also, I have not been able to trigger this problem
 state with any of our other wm-based systems, so that would suggest
 that it is somehow related to this:
 
 wm0 at pci4 dev 5 function 0: Intel i82540EM 1000BASE-T Ethernet, rev. 2
 wm0: interrupting at irq 11
 wm0: 32-bit 33MHz PCI bus
 wm0: 64 word (6 address bits) MicroWire EEPROM
 wm0: Ethernet address 00:02:b3:d8:e2:7b
 makphy0 at wm0 phy 1: Marvell 88E1011 Gigabit PHY, rev. 3
 
 That is the only i82540EM we have, so it could be either just this 
 specific card, or the cards with that chip.
 
 If somebody can convince me that this is a HW issue, then this PR can be 
 closed.
 
 
 Artsi
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