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Date:      Fri, 31 Oct 2003 01:01:17 -0500
From:      Keith Mitchell <kmitch@guru.org>
To:        freebsd-net@freebsd.org
Subject:   iMac and FreeBSD performance problems
Message-ID:  <20031031060117.GA77018@weenix.guru.org>

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Hi,

I'm trying to figure out why my FreeBSD box and my iMac are having
trouble communicating at 100 Mbs full-duplex.

To briefly describe my LAN setup, I have a 16port linksys 10/100 ethernet
switch connected to two FreeBSD systems, an iMac, a PC and some other
miscellaneous stuff.  Everything works fine except the interaction between
the iMac and the FreeBSD machines.

What I see is extremely slow transfers (FTP/TFTP at least) from the
FreeBSD machines to the iMac.  The reverse direction (from the iMac to
the FreeBSD machiens work fine).  If this isn't bad enough, if I connect
the iMac to a 10BT hub instead of the ethernet switch then everything
seems to work fine as well.  The iMac can talk to all the other equipment
without a problem when its connected to the ethernet switch.  Likewise
the FreeBSD machines can talk to each other without any problems and to
all of the other networking equipment.... they just can't talk to the iMac
efficiently.

I just noticed this problem but I am not sure how long it has existed since
I just started having a need to transfer large chunks of dat between
the iMac and the FreeBSD machines.

I have tried various versions of FreeBSD all with the same affect (4.6, 4.7,
4.9, 5.1).  The iMac is currently running 10.3  (which is supposedly roughly
equivalent to FreeBSD 5).  I also saw the samething with the 10.2 release
though.  The FreeBSD machines are using Dec21140 based 10/100 ethernet
cards and it doesn't seem to matter if I use the GENERIC kernel or
a custom kernel with all the extra stuff removed.

I have also tried a different Linksys ethernet switch with the same
results.  I don't have another vendor to try unfortunately.

Anyone have any clues on this bizarre problem?

-- 
Keith Mitchell
Email: kmitch@guru.org				PGP key available upon request



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