From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 12 18:08:53 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B370916A46E for ; Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:08:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tom@tomjudge.com) Received: from smtp806.mail.ird.yahoo.com (smtp806.mail.ird.yahoo.com [217.146.188.66]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 2C05D13C4D0 for ; Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:08:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tom@tomjudge.com) Received: (qmail 93191 invoked from network); 12 Jul 2007 18:08:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.1.2?) (thomasjudge@btinternet.com@86.139.149.183 with plain) by smtp806.mail.ird.yahoo.com with SMTP; 12 Jul 2007 18:08:51 -0000 X-YMail-OSG: _0_f0wUVM1lq2rk6Izqrhb5EzP4kcqBoKvP.SFCRu_tMcIUn Message-ID: <46967C68.7030904@tomjudge.com> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 20:09:28 +0100 From: Tom Judge User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.12 (X11/20070604) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Tom Judge , Julian Elischer , Josh Paetzel , Paul Schmehl , freebsd-net@freebsd.org References: <4694940D.9050408@tomjudge.com> <200707111230.24975.josh@tcbug.org> <46956A44.3000304@tomjudge.com> <46958A55.4020704@elischer.org> <4695F4FD.2010102@tomjudge.com> <20070712165425.GC91325@in-addr.com> In-Reply-To: <20070712165425.GC91325@in-addr.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Subject: Re: Question about bce driver X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:08:53 -0000 Gary Palmer wrote: > On Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 10:31:41AM +0100, Tom Judge wrote: >> Julian Elischer wrote: >>> Tom Judge wrote: >>>> Josh Paetzel wrote: >>>>> On Wednesday 11 July 2007, Tom Judge wrote: >>>>>> Hi Paul, >>>>>> >>>>>> From the testing that I have been doing for the last few months >>>>>> the driver in 6.2 is stable if you are not using jumbo frames and >>>>>> there is a light-moderate network load. >>>>>> >>>>>> However if you want to use Jumbo frames the driver is very >>>>>> unstable. I posted a patch against 6.2 which should fix some load >>>>>> based issues in the driver with standard frame sizes. >>>>>> >>>>>> Tom >>>>> Paul, I was never able to solve the link up/link down problems with >>>>> the driver....I was using the drivers from STABLE for a while, and >>>>> without jumbo frames everything worked somewhat ok most of the >>>>> time....the ultimate solution was to just get the intel PCI-X card >>>>> and stop using the broadcoms. >>>>> >>>>> >>>> We have basically come to the same conclusion today, unfortunately >>>> this is 35 machines, but if it makes them stable at least we can use >>>> them. >>> I'm not seeing any problems on our 2950s running 6.1 plus some backpatches. > >> I am very surprised at that. The driver in 6.1 was un-usable in our >> environment. 6.2 makes it usable with standard frames under moderate >> load. However use jumbo frames and it all falls apart, and unfortunately >> the network these systems are plugged into is GigE only with a 8192 >> Jumbo mtu. > > I wouldn't be surprised if you were running different rev motherboards. > Although the Dell chassis/model number is the same, they frequently rev > the motherboard without any externally visible changes. I'd be more > surprised if you had the same mobo part number and PCI ID's for the > Broadcom chips. > > Gary I have systems with 2 different revisions of the broadcom chip on them, both revisions have show the same symptoms. Please see my posts in thread "Problems with BCE network adapter (Dell PE2950)" you will find full details of the chip revisions that I have tested with. Tom