From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Aug 14 19: 1:25 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3433337B401 for ; Wed, 14 Aug 2002 19:01:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from services.webwarrior.net (overlord-host99.dsl.visi.com [209.98.86.99]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8D94543E84 for ; Wed, 14 Aug 2002 19:01:19 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from friar_josh@webwarrior.net) Received: from heater.vladsempire.net (12-218-27-215.client.mchsi.com [12.218.27.215]) by services.webwarrior.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8828A24FA4; Wed, 14 Aug 2002 21:01:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Re: Problems with the xl driver or 3Com cards? From: Josh Paetzel Reply-To: friar_josh@webwarrior.net To: Matt Johnson Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: References: Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.0.8 Date: 14 Aug 2002 20:59:46 +0000 Message-Id: <1029358787.337.20.camel@heater.vladsempire.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, 2002-08-14 at 22:34, Matt Johnson wrote: > Hi all, > > I've tried everything, and I'm really lost for answers here. I have a > FreeBSD box which has a 3Com Etherlink XL in it. A while back, I got a > new 100mbps switch to replace my old 10mbps hub. I noticed that despite > now having a faster network hub, my FreeBSD machine was still unable to > get speeds of more than 200 or 300K/s. This only happened when the > FreeBSD machine was receiving. Transmitting worked fine. > > I did a lot of testing. I tested speeds between two other machines on > my network to make sure it wasn't the hub, and they both got about > 5MB/s to each each other. I noticed that the FreeBSD box was able to > transmit to other machines at the full speed (5MB/s or so). The other > machines on the network were able to do it both ways to each other as > well. The kicker was when I tried putting in another NIC to the FreeBSD > machine (this one used the "dc" driver) and also got full speeds both > ways. > > Naturally, I assumed my current 3Com card (which had been in there for > going 3 years now) was faulty. The card was a 3c905B-TX. I obtained a > couple of spare, relatively unused 3c905-TX cards (not the 'B' model) > and put them in my machine. I tried, and with both these cards, I had > the exact same scenario: transmission works as it should, but reception > seems to hit a 200K/s ceiling and fail. It happens with FTP and a few > other transfer methods I tried. I really don't see what could possibly > be the problem, unless there's some problem with the xl driver that I'm > not aware of. I don't see how this could possibly have gone ignored for > so long though, since I really didn't do anything to trigger it that I > know of, and it's happened only with "xl" cards with 3 different cards. > > Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? > > Thanks in advance, > Matt You really have more issues than that one card. A pair of reasonably fast PC's on a 100tx network should get from 9-10.5M/sec transfer rates. Your other boxes only doing 5 is a problem as well. I've seen this issue over and over again with boxes that were reinstalled, network cards, ports, cables, switches and anything else we could think of swapped around. I joke that some ATX cases are only rated for certain 100tx transfer rates. In your specific case, what are the specs on the machine? I can imagine that a P133 with an old 425 meg IDE drive not being able to saturate a 100TX network. Josh To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message