Comment 8 for bug 150515

I am not quite sure if this bug is a duplicate - it seems to me that something is wrong with this specific driver or its interaction with the (tickless?) kernel:

My setup is similar to the one, the bug was originally reported for: LG S1 Pro Express Dual - with an Agere et131x wired network card. As reported, ksoftirqd/1 keeps running at 15-25 % of CPU power on one of the CPUs (currently #1). Switching off the network via Network Manager lets the IRQ load vanish instantly, as does removing the et131x module by hand.

Running the 'powertop' tool from Intel, the top of the list of processes waking up the processors is this:
    31,9% (250,1) NetworkManager : et131x_open (et131x_error_timer_handler)

Furthermore, when I call 'dmesg' I get a seemingly endless list of error messages in the style of:
    [ 844.008000] et131x.ko:WARNING:et131x_ioctl Unhandled IOCTL Code: 0x8b01

I had noticed the dmesg errors earlier and searched a little (wired network is working fine so my motivation was limited) and I came across some other threads (most about Ubuntu Gutsy), where users got this error message. In the sourceforge forum (Google doesn't search these!), someone said, that this error message was due to chatter over the wireless network that the et131x doesn't recognize and logs as this error code.
(Thread here: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1739227&forum_id=621136 )

Could there be a connection (pun not intended)?

Of course I'll gladly run any diagnostics/tests necessary to troubleshoot the problem!

Regards,
 Bernhard