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Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 10:58:24 -0800 (PST)
From: Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>
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To: John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org>
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Cc: alan bryan <alanbryan1234@yahoo.com>,
	Alexander Leidinger <Alexander@leidinger.net>, freebsd-current@freebsd.org,
	FreeBSD current mailing list <current@freebsd.org>,
	"Bjoern A. Zeeb" <bzeeb-lists@lists.zabbadoz.net>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] nve(4) locking cleanup
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    A side note on the work I did on nv (nve) for DragonFly.

    I spent a very, very long time trying to fix the watchdog problems.  I
    was able to greatly reduce instances of the watchdog timeout, but it
    still occurs under heavy load.

    Even worse, I can wedge the hardware to the point where a reboot or
    soft power-down does not fix the problem!  I have to physically unplug
    the power cable from the box to make the device work again.  It only
    takes ~30 min - 3 hours of testing to get the ethernet into this 
    hardware-wedged state.

    At this point I believe that the remaining problems are entirely within
    Nvidia's nvnet object module.  I don't think there is anything we can do
    about it short of NVidia coming out with an update (which isn't likely).

    Now, linux *has* a native implementation of this driver that does not
    use the Nvidia module, and I have gotten reports that it does not suffer
    from the same problems. 

    I think the only way to solve the watchdog problems that nv (nve) has
    is to throw it in the trash and do a fresh port from the native driver
    in the linux tree.

						-Matt