Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 23:55:46 -0400 From: "Christopher R. Bowman" <crb@ChrisBowman.com> To: Mike Andrews <mandrews@termfrost.org> Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: DEC Tulip sluggishness on a 486 Message-ID: <199808160503.AAA08701@quark.ChrisBowman.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.02.9808151922030.9468-100000@mindcrime.termfros t.org>
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At 08:04 PM 8/15/98 , Mike Andrews wrote: >Here's a weird one... > >I've been using an old 386SX for a few years to route my home network, >using two SMC Ultras and a full-length Wavelan with no problems. Today I >decided to add 100baseTX to the mix, so I pulled out an old 486 PCI board >(SiS 85c496 + 85c497 chipset), pulled all the guts out of the 386SX, added >a DEC Tulip 21140-AB card and fired it up. > >I'm getting really *horrible* performance out of this. Pinging between >machines on the same segment sometimes gives over 1000 ms ping times, 30% >packet loss, and sometimes doesn't talk at all -- ifconfig shows the >OACTIVE flag set, and it usually takes a few tries of "ifconfig de0 down; >ifconfig de0 up" to wake it up. Sometimes plugging/unplugging the cable >helps too. > >The two other machines on this segment can talk to each other fine -- >they're both P200MMX's, Triton 2 motherboards (Asus P55T2P4), one with the >same version of FreeBSD and one with Windows 98. File transfers, flood >pings, etc are fine between those two. Cables have been swapped. The >other two machines also have Tulip cards (21140-AB in the FreeBSD box, >21140-AF in the Win98 box). > >I did some searches and came up with nothing specific, but a few bits and >pieces... which are leading me to believe that it's some sort of >interaction with the SiS chipset on the 486 board and the Tulip driver -- >the source to the Linux Tulip driver has a special case for 486 boards. >Also the first rev of the SiS 85c496 chipset were said to have >cache-related problems (I've tried disabling L1 and L2 cache; didn't >help). > >So... > >Is there anything I can tweak (i.e. adding kernel options, BIOS settings, >or whatever)... short of using another motherboard, or (more likely) just >getting an Intel Etherexpress? > >Also... an even weirder problem: > >I have another 486 board I would try, except with both PCI and VLB slots >and a UMC 8881F/8886F chipset. When I plug the WaveLAN into it, the RAM >and floppy tests fail, and FreeBSD panics as soon as init comes up. Remove >the WaveLAN and the machine boots fine. I may try running this board with >the Tulip and without the WaveLAN and see if the Tulip is still unhappy... >just for grins. But the WaveLAN problem with it puzzles me. > > >Full dmesg of the SiS 486 follows: > > >FreeBSD 2.2.7-STABLE #0: Sun Jul 26 00:22:33 EDT 1998 > mandrews@mindcrime.termfrost.org:/usr/src/sys/compile/ESCAPE >CPU: AMD Enhanced Am486DX4 Write-Back (486-class CPU) > Origin = "AuthenticAMD" Id = 0x494 Stepping=4 > Features=0x1<FPU> >real memory = 33554432 (32768K bytes) >avail memory = 31154176 (30424K bytes) >Probing for devices on PCI bus 0: >chip0 <SiS 85c496> rev 49 on pci0:5:0 >de0 <Digital 21140 Fast Ethernet> rev 18 int a irq 9 on pci0:11:0 >de0: 21140 [10-100Mb/s] pass 1.2 >de0: address 00:40:f6:84:00:8d >vga0 <VGA-compatible display device> rev 20 int a irq 12 on pci0:13:0 >Probing for devices on the ISA bus: >sc0 at 0x60-0x6f irq 1 on motherboard >sc0: VGA color <2 virtual consoles, flags=0x0> >ed0 at 0x280-0x29f irq 5 maddr 0xd8000 msize 16384 on isa >ed0: address 00:00:c0:74:ab:9f, type SMC8216T (16 bit) >ed1 at 0x300-0x31f irq 10 maddr 0xd0000 msize 16384 on isa >ed1: address 00:00:c0:71:ab:9f, type SMC8216T (16 bit) >sio0 at 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 on isa >sio0: type 16550A >sio1 at 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 on isa >sio1: type 16550A >lpt0 at 0x378-0x37f irq 7 on isa >lpt0: Interrupt-driven port >lp0: TCP/IP capable interface >fdc0 at 0x3f0-0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on isa >wdc0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7 irq 14 on isa >wdc0: unit 0 (wd0): <Kalok KL-3120> >wd0: 114MB (235440 sectors), 981 cyls, 6 heads, 40 S/T, 512 B/S >wl0 at 0x390-0x39f irq 11 on isa >wl0: address 08:00:0e:21:14:ba, NWID 0x1000 >npx0 flags 0x1 on motherboard >npx0: INT 16 interface >IP packet filtering initialized, divert disabled, default to accept, unlimited logging >de0: enabling 100baseTX port >wd0: interrupt timeout: >wd0: status 50<rdy,seekdone> error 0 >de0: link down: cable problem? >de0: abnormal interrupt: transmit underflow (raising TX threshold to 96|256) >de0: abnormal interrupt: transmit underflow (raising TX threshold to 8|512) >de0: abnormal interrupt: transmit underflow (raising TX threshold to 1024) > >(I'm assuming the wd0 error is due to the fact that the drive is *very* >ancient... although it didn't give that error on the 386...) > > >Mike Andrews (MA12) icq 6602506 -------------- mandrews@dcr.net >Senior Systems/Network Administrator --- mandrews@termfrost.org >Digital Crescent, Frankfort, KY ----- http://www.termfrost.org/ >"If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?..." Is this a duplex negotiation problem? Try manually configing the dec adaptor into the propper duplexing mode. Let me know how this works. -------- Christopher R. Bowman crb@ChrisBowman.com http://www.ChrisBowman.com/~crb To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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