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Date:      Sun, 19 Jan 2003 14:18:33 -0500
From:      Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com>
To:        FreeBSD questions mailing list <questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: TX underrun
Message-ID:  <3E2AFA09.8090404@mac.com>
References:  <20030119173530.3905B48463@wastegate.net>

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Doug Reynolds wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Jan 2003 03:17:01 +0100 (CET), Marc Schneiders wrote:
[ ... ]
>>xl1: tx underrun, increasing tx start threshold to 180 bytes
>>xl1: transmission error: 90
>>xl1: tx underrun, increasing tx start threshold to 240 bytes
> 
> does that mean it is increasing or decreasing?

Good ethernet cards can attempt to transmit a packet before the local system 
has actually written all of the data to them.

If the local system fails to produce the data quickly enough, though, the card 
experiences a buffer underflow...which means about the same as it does when 
you burn a CD; it has to abort and resend the packet.  The driver is smart 
enough to notice this, and will try to compensate by buffering more data 
before sending the packet out (ie, the "start threshold"), so that the machine 
has more time to finish generating the packet.

This is also a situation where device polling might be quite helpful.

-Chuck


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