Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 11:43:09 -0800 From: arnee <arnee@geocities.com> To: Bill Paul <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> Cc: dillon@apollo.backplane.com, current@FreeBSD.ORG, gerald@manhattanprojects.com Subject: Re: ...(file transfer crashes system) ethernet driver or IP stack bug? Message-ID: <3888B6CC.B7842087@geocities.com> References: <200001210552.AAA11760@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu>
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Bill Paul wrote:
> Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, arnee had to walk
> into mine and say:
hehehhe... Oh no!! What did I walk into... a quicksand! :-)
> Ack...
> No, please...
> Stop, you're killing me...
> Aieeeee!
>
> Oh for the love of *god*. Rip this thing out of your machine now. Put it
> on the ground. Stomp on it. Repeatedly. Then set it on fire. Bury the
> remains in the back yard. Then run - don't walk! - to your local computer
> store, put a crowbar in your wallet, and buy a better ethernet card.
hahhaha!! :-) I knew I would get this... I got this machine for free and used to run BeOS on it. It
is *not* a priority to have FreeBSD or any other OS running on this machine. Yes, I've thought of not
even taking the damn thing... but since I have another closet to place it in, what the heck... I'll
play with it.
> Don't whine, don't bitch, don't moan, don't complain that it works with
> Windows (actually, I bet it doesn't; not on that hardware, using bus
> master DMA for both controllers). Just do it.
Hmm... and yes not the best compare to my 3Coms, but I never thought that the ethernet card would be
that bad. And I would never base my decisions ("..whine, ..bitch, ..moan, ..complain") of using it
because the hardware works with win9x. I have 2 linux boxes, a freebsd 3.2 box, and 2 other win9x
boxes using FA310TX and they work just fine. A couple of them connected to a 10Mbps 3com hub (with 2
other boxes with 3Com NICs) and the others, plus this machine, connected to a 100Mbps Netgear hub
(with other boxes with 3Com NICs).
> You have a Cyrix CPU, and I'm willing to bet you've overclocked it. ("What?
> You mean that might have some effect on the situation?") You have a PCI
> chipset which the probe messages don't even identify, and you're using
> not one but *two* bus master devices on it, one of which is a PNIC ethernet
> controller that can barely do bus master DMA correctly on a good day. Not
> only that, but you have two ATA controllers in this machine, one of which has
> no devices on it, and you have the damn hard disk on the *second* controller.
> Why do you have two controllers? Why not just use the built-in one!
Yes, one would wonder why. But, it is some what of a catch 22 installing 4.0-current. I am using a
17gig (Ultra-ATA/66 capable) harddrive with a MB bios that can only handle 8.4gig (Ultra-ATA/33)
harddrive. And since I have a Promise Ultra-ATA/66 controller that 4.0-current supports.. why not!
Yes, I know there are other, in fact many other ways to make it work... one is by compiling a 3.4
kernel with a patch--or does 3.4-stable now supports the card (ATA/66)? However, there is no point,
and it's not feasible, of reverting the harddrive to an ATA/33, which the MB bios will not see
anyway, to make it work.
> Does this have something to do with the PNIC? Oh, probably. But I'm not going
> to even attempt to debug this. There's no way in hell I could duplicate this
> hardware configuration locally, and even if I did, I probably couldn't
> duplicate the exact same problem. And even if I could do *that*, I
> still wouldn't know how to fix it. I'm sorry, but I've pulled out enough
> hair over this damn chip. I'm sure I've wasted at least a couple months
> of my life trying to make this thing work reliably. I've added several
> software workarounds, I defaulted the stupid transmit threshold setting
> to store and forward mode. Well I've had it: no more. I'm through trying
> to bitchslap this rotten piece of silicon to its senses. I'm not going to
> go nuts every time somebody comes up with yet another oddball hardware
> combination. There's a limit to my patience and this chip has reached it.
> Now it's somebody else's turn to lose their sanity. I have the datasheet for
> the PNIC at http://www.freebsd.org/~wpaul/PNIC. You have the driver source.
> Somebody *else* try and figure it out, and then tell me then answer when
> you have it.
Well, I would say that my FreeBSD 3.2 box (with not so "oddball hardware combination" :-)) is doing
just fine with this NIC... and I bow my hat to you, thank you.
> That said, if you have overclocked this machine, then un-overclock it *right*
> *now* and never, ever do it again! PCI bus master DMA is goofy enough without
> people sticking their fingers in the works.
Although I don't remember overclocking it... I'll take a look.
> Man, why does PC hardware have to suck so hard.
>
> -Bill
Thanks for the insight and help.
arnee
"Ackkkkk.. a spider!! That damn "bug" always *gets* my attention! :-)
Sorry, just a little humor!
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