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Date:      Fri, 24 Dec 1999 11:07:10 +0100
From:      Harold Gutch <logix@foobar.franken.de>
To:        Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>, Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com>, Bill Paul <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu>, "B. Scott Michel" <scottm@CS.UCLA.EDU>, Jonathan Lemon <jlemon@americantv.com>, Brad Knowles <brad@shub-internet.org>, Joe Abley <jabley@patho.gen.nz>, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>, Garrett Wollman <wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Woa!  May have found something - 'rl' driver and small packets (was Re: Odd TCP glitches in new currents)
Message-ID:  <19991224110710.B8399@foobar.franken.de>
In-Reply-To: <199912230618.WAA16656@apollo.backplane.com>; from Matthew Dillon on Wed, Dec 22, 1999 at 10:18:56PM -0800
References:  <Pine.BSF.4.10.9912222023410.50586-100000@current1.whistle.com> <199912230451.UAA15739@apollo.backplane.com> <199912230547.VAA16324@apollo.backplane.com> <199912230618.WAA16656@apollo.backplane.com>

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On Wed, Dec 22, 1999 at 10:18:56PM -0800, Matthew Dillon wrote:
>     I'm adding Bill Paul to the list specifically.
> 
>     Hmm.  Now this is odd!  I think I may have found something!
> 
>     All of my 'rl' driver cards fail this test:
> 
> 	apollo# linktest -m 0.1:0.2 -s 16 -f16 lander
> 	lander# linktest -m 0.1:0.2 -s 16 -f16 apollo
> 
> 	They get about 1% packet loss with the test.  Always.  
> 	100BaseTX full or half duplex, or 10BaseT -- I still get
> 	failures.
> 

I can't repeat this with a RealTek 8039 (that's an 'ed'-NIC) and
a RealTek 8139 (that's the 'rl'-one) running 10BaseT.
Note that I am _NOT_ running -CURRENT on any of these machines,
they both run 2.2-STABLE (rev. 1.17 of rl.c).

The packetloss when using small packets is exactly 0 - that is no
packetloss occured during the minute or so which I was running
linktest.
I just started it again and will leave it running for a couple of
hours, but I doubt that this will make a change.

Whoops, I in fact experienced packet loss now:

overdose(194.94.249.94)->foobar.franken.de      lost 1/1606
overdose(194.94.249.94)->foobar.franken.de      lost 2/2702
foobar.franken.de->overdose(194.94.249.94)      lost 1/3412
overdose(194.94.249.94)->foobar.franken.de      lost 3/3829


Note that was playing PCM-files via NFS at this time, so there
was additional network traffic of ~180 KByte/s.

These here now occured although there was no additional network
traffic:

overdose(194.94.249.94)->foobar.franken.de      lost 4/5491
overdose(194.94.249.94)->foobar.franken.de      lost 5/5692
overdose(194.94.249.94)->foobar.franken.de      lost 6/7277
overdose(194.94.249.94)->foobar.franken.de      lost 7/8661
overdose(194.94.249.94)->foobar.franken.de      lost 8/9412
overdose(194.94.249.94)->foobar.franken.de      lost 9/11393
overdose(194.94.249.94)->foobar.franken.de      lost 10/13699
foobar.franken.de->overdose(194.94.249.94)      lost 2/13728
overdose(194.94.249.94)->foobar.franken.de      lost 11/16426


It seems as if this was roughly the same amount of packetloss as
you experienced.


> 	rl0: <RealTek 8139 10/100BaseTX> irq 11 at device 3.0 on pci0
> 	rl0: Ethernet address: 00:50:ba:d1:89:05
> 	miibus0: <MII bus> on rl0
> 
>     All of my 'fxp' driver cards succeed with the above test perfectly.
>     If I test an fxp machine verses an 'rl' machine, linktest shows that
>     the 'rl' cards can transmit small packets just fine but they lose
>     out trying to receive them!

Nope, it's the other way round for me.  overdose has the
'rl'-NIC, foobar has the 'ed'-NIC.

I hope to be able to do a few additional tests soon.


>     Methinks there is something going on with the 'rl' driver and/or
>     the RealTek cards!

My experience with those cards isn't the best, so I'd place my
bets on the cards.

bye,
  Harold

-- 
<Shabby> Sleep is an abstinence syndrome wich occurs due to lack of caffein.
Wed Mar  4 04:53:33 CET 1998   #unix, ircnet


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