[Triumf-linux-managers] Anyone has experience with this sort of a problem?

[Mina Nozar]

Hi all,

I am trying to solve a problem with one of our machines, Cadenza.

Every so often, the machine gets into a "weired" state where typed commands
don't show up on the screen till 30 secs later and get applied then.

It is as if some process takes over and delays the keyboard response.

I can't find anything pointing me to the problem aside from network related
messages in the /var/log/messages:

Jul 18 01:25:25 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 01:30:28 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 06:10:49 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 06:10:52 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 10:43:08 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 10:43:09 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 11:00:34 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 12:09:43 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 12:33:56 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 20:08:49 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 22:02:33 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 23:00:59 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 18 23:01:25 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 19 00:25:36 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 19 00:25:37 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 19 09:58:02 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.
Jul 19 14:04:47 cadenza kernel: eth0: Too much work in interrupt, status 
8401.

The timing of these messages doesn't correspond to any cron jobs running 
or to
any obvious heavy network traffic.

All I have found from the net is that the above message corresponds to 
the driver
reaching the hard coded limit on the number of waiting requests that it 
will service per interupt.
This number can be changed in the driver's source code but I'd rather 
not go that way.

Does anyone on this list have experience with this sort of a problem?
Could it be the network card that's having problems or the connection?

Thanks for any help,
Mina

-- 
Mina Nozar
Tel.:  604-222-7595
Fax:  604-222-1074
Em.:  nozarm@triumf.ca
Web:  trshare.triumf.ca/~nozarm
Add.: TRIUMF, 4004 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 2A3, Canada
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