Does anyone ever see these things stop responding if there has not been any network traffic? I have quite a few of these running in Linux and generally I just throw a 2nd NIC in the box, but still it makes me angry that I can't figure out why the only way to get the network back up is I have to reboot.

Have you tried just taking the nic down and bringing it back up?

ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 up

Generally Realtek network adapters are very low quality and certainly not meant for servers. You should really spend the extra money for either Intel or 3COM network adapters, much higher quality and will probably eliminate the problem you are having.

I've had many problems with the realtek nics, I now avoid them. It seems that they will just stop responding.. there is still a hardware link, but no traffic gets passed untill I reboot the box. I've had this happen on 60 or 70 boxes now. Currently, we replace the realteks with 3com or intel cards, and disable the realtek if it is onboard. These cards are built to be cheap, but unfortunantly you get what you pay for there.
Originally posted by jic
Does anyone ever see these things stop responding if there has not been any network traffic? I have quite a few of these running in Linux and generally I just throw a 2nd NIC in the box, but still it makes me angry that I can't figure out why the only way to get the network back up is I have to reboot.

It does remind me of the built-in Intel VE Pro 100 network card I have installed on my HP notebook. On Windows it worked fine but when I tried installing Linux, the card just sleeps after a few minutes of inactivity. Found out that the Sleep Bit was turned on. Once it went off, it works like a charm.

I am not sure if this is the same thing which you are facing but it does sounds very similiar.

On the FreeBSD lists the 8139 is often referred to as being a crap chipset for anything high performance as it will reportedly lock up under high load.

I always use Intel EtherExpress Pro 100s out of preference.

^^^^ Yes!

Originally posted by Paul-Xensia
On the FreeBSD lists the 8139 is often referred to as being a crap chipset for anything high performance as it will reportedly lock up under high load.

I always use Intel EtherExpress Pro 100s out of preference.

Heh that bug is 3 years old now :)