Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 22:56:41 -0600 (CST) From: Jeremy Shaffner <jeremy@external.org> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Bad drivers? (fwd) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9912152254460.80851-100000@indigo.external.org>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Forwarded on behalf of Cliff (Hub is bouncing his mail.) I'll forward any
replies sent to myself, but CC him if you can.
--------- Forwarded message ---------
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 06:51:27 -0000
From: Cliff Rowley <dozprompt@onsea.com>
To: lazarus@external.org
Subject: Bad drivers?
Greetings.
I've searched high and low for a solution to my woes, but I've so far been
far from fruitful.
To start with, I went out and bought a NetGear fast ethernet kit to replace
my now somewhat incapable 10baseT network setup. The pack contained 2
NetGear FA310TX 10/100 NIC's, and a DS104 4 port auto-sensing dual speed
10/100 hub.
I installed one card in my Windows 98 box, and one in my FreeBSD 3.4-RC box,
using the pn Lite-On 82c168/82c169 driver as suggested by LINT and `man pn`,
and began to run a few tests. I tested transferring an 8MB file from one
side of the two computer (via hub) network to the other, and back again, and
found some alarming results.
Going from FreeBSD to Windows is great. The 8MB transfer happened in less
than 2 seconds - exactly what I expected. Then I reversed the direction.
The transfer rate from Windows to FreeBSD peaked at about 500kb/s, and took
a little over 20 seconds. This is not what I expected. I then rebooted the
freebsd machine into Windows (dual boot), and tested from Windows to Window.
The transfer rates were excellent. Just as expected - same results both
ways. So this narrows it down to one of three things. My setup, the
driver, or a simple incompatibility. I've since checked and re-checked my
setup for anything that appears to be wrong, and found nothing. My exact
card and chipset is mentioned not only in the manpage, but also in the
driver source, so it cant be a non-support issue.
After a frustrating, and fruitless search for answers, I turned to reading
the source for the pn driver for some clues. A few bugs in the PNIC chipset
are mentioned, but only under a high load, and not too common. Not what I
was looking for. I decided that maybe the pn driver is just incomplete, and
not fully functional, and that the best thing I could do would be to return
the kit, and buy another using a different driver.
Today I bought a LinkSys equivalent to the kit I had just returned. Two
LinkSys LNE100TX Revision D 10/100 NIC's (LinkSys Chipset), and a LinkSys
E2HUB04 straight 100BaseTX 4 port hub. I am experiencing exactly the same
problems as with the NetGear kit, but this time I am using the mx driver
(where my new card is mentioned).
Can anyone shed any light on this at all? I really dont get it. I'm under
a very, very tight deadline, and I've already lost 2 days work through this,
I have network hardware testing to do, and I cannot do it until my network
is fully 100BaseTX capable.
I will be returning the LinkSys kit today, and I will be ordering two 3Com
3C905C-TX-M 10/100 NIC's, and another NetGear DS104 4 port auto-sensing dual
speed 10/100 hub (it's all I can afford if I am to buy the 3Com cards).
The problem with this is that (a) it will take another 2 days until I
recieve them, and (b) it's inches away from Christmas, and it wont be a
particularly eventful one if I have to shell out on more expensive equipment
as well as lose another 2 days work.
I am hoping that anyone who is reading this will be able to shed some light
on the situation, and perhaps offer any hints or tips they may have.
Anything that may even spark a thought that will lead me in the right
direction - any help at all will be very much appreciated.
Both cards in both situations on both OS's were running at 100BaseTX
half-duplex. I have also tried peer to peer with xover cable, with the same
results. Incidentally, I have also tried swapping all the cables. The
entire network in both situations was entirely different, except for the
machines attached to it.
Here is some information that may or may not come in useful:
[root@merlin]# uname -a
FreeBSD merlin.onsea.com 3.4-RC FreeBSD 3.4-RC #0: Wed Dec 15 19:06:27 GMT
1999
dozprompt@merlin.onsea.com:/usr/src/sys/compile/MERLIN i386
(following taken from netstat -I mx0 -w 1 during the 8MB transfer via FTP)
input (mx0) output
packets errs bytes packets errs bytes colls
197 24 278628 100 0 5463 0
201 23 284672 103 0 5625 0
249 23 353072 132 0 7191 0
243 23 346856 130 0 7083 4
249 23 353912 133 0 7245 3
150 15 211990 82 0 4491 2
199 24 281372 103 0 5625 0
148 18 208986 70 0 3843 1
303 33 430272 162 0 8811 0
196 25 277398 99 0 5409 0
202 23 285062 110 0 6003 1
247 15 350032 134 0 7299 0
(following taken from a tcpdump session after transferring part of a file
from windows to freebsd)
6223 packets received by filter
4021 packets dropped by kernel
(following taken from a tcpdump session after transferring the same file
from freebsd to windows)
6223 packets received by filter
0 packets dropped by kernel
If anyone can help, I will be eternally grateful. If you need any more
information, please let me know and I'll happily fill you in. If anyone can
answer, please do so ASAP, as I shall be ordering the new cards within the
next few hours or so. There are only two of the 3com cards that I can get
at this price (which is still double that of the NetGear/LinkSys).
Thanks in advance,
Cliff Rowley
- while (!cliff->isasleep()) { cliff->code(); }
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.4.10.9912152254460.80851-100000>