How does the Stratix II GX Transceiver Deserializer work?

Thanks for the info

I plan to use an LFSR to send a known sequence of data across the link and compare it to what I expect on the receiving end. This seems like it should give me the ability to determine when I have lost my link. The real issue is that I need to know down to the bit when I lost the link. That is why my table shows 5-bits making it thru before the link is broken.

What I am trying to determine is what will the Deserializer look like when the link is broken. Based on what you have describe it sounds like it could be my "option C" where it just keeps deserializing the data even though it is zeros because my codes are no longer making it thru.

I could then use the partial value to compare against the code I expected to get and see that the link failed at bit-5 on code-X.

What do you think?