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Date:               Wed, 31 Jul 1996 10:32:44 +600 CDT
From:      "Larry Dolinar" <LARRYD@bldg1.croute.com>
To:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:         irq 12
Message-ID:  <97AC600782E@bldg1.croute.com>

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Half-observation, half-question:

Some of you may recall my post about a printserver I was setting up using 
2.1.0-R on a 486DX-33 with IDE and 3 parallel ports.  I later switched to 
a 486DX-66 with 8MB, and it seems more stable.  I even recompiled the 
kernel for non-polling mode on all 3 lpts.

The failure mode we still observe from time to time: after an
indeterminate period of inactivity (ie, no print requests), the host
seems to refuse all sorts of TCP/IP contact (ftp/telnet/lpr) except
ping. Consequently no printing.  Oddly enough the host itself still
allows ftp/telnet access from the console to other hosts.

Even a shutdown (not cold boot) doesn't fix it.  A cold boot generally
does.  One other odd thing we noticed after a shutdown is that by running 
a netstat -r after login and waiting till hell freezes over for the full 
results, the "missing" contact is reinstated.  In other words, the 
problem goes away.

The NIC is, as some would expect, an NE2000 clone (at irq 12, iobase 300).
Trying to use irq 2 or 5 (although -c/visual reports no conflict)
generally results in ed0:timeout messages during boot, a sure sign of
trouble.

We've seen oddball behavior on WinNT 3.51 workstations using bus mouse 
input (presumably irq 12) as well: after a period of no mouse use, the 
mouse freezes up.  We no longer use anything but serial mice in that 
environment.


Finally, the question: despite its availability, is irq 12 considered one 
of the black sheep of the PC hardware family, and to be avoided for 
things like NIC settings?  Any horror stories to be shared?


thanks for listening,
larry

ps.  Yes, the kernel was modified for irq12 on ed0, but the behavior
     preceded the kernel change.

pps. The kernel config, stripped of all comments:

machine     "i386"
cpu     "I386_CPU"
cpu     "I486_CPU"
ident       "VLB486PS"
maxusers    10
options     MATH_EMULATE        #Support for x87 emulation
options     INET            #InterNETworking
options     FFS         #Berkeley Fast Filesystem
options     NFS         #Network Filesystem
options     MSDOSFS         #MSDOS Filesystem
options     "CD9660"        #ISO 9660 Filesystem
options     PROCFS          #Process filesystem
options     "COMPAT_43"     #Compatible with BSD 4.3
options     BOUNCE_BUFFERS      #include support for DMA bounce buffers
options     UCONSOLE        #Allow users to grab the console
options     SYSVSHM
options     SYSVSEM
options     SYSVMSG
config      kernel  root on wd0 
controller  isa0
controller  fdc0    at isa? port "IO_FD1" bio irq 6 drq 2 vector fdintr
disk        fd0 at fdc0 drive 0
disk        fd1 at fdc0 drive 1
controller  wdc0    at isa? port "IO_WD1" bio irq 14 vector wdintr
disk        wd0 at wdc0 drive 0
disk        wd1 at wdc0 drive 1
device      sc0 at isa? port "IO_KBD" tty irq 1 vector scintr
device      npx0    at isa? port "IO_NPX" irq 13 vector npxintr
device      sio0    at isa? port "IO_COM1" tty irq 4 vector siointr
device      sio1    at isa? port "IO_COM2" tty irq 3 vector siointr
device      lpt0    at isa? port? tty
device      lpt1    at isa? port? tty
device      lpt2    at isa? port? tty
device ed0 at isa? port 0x300 net irq  12 iomem 0xd8000 vector edintr
pseudo-device   loop
pseudo-device   ether
pseudo-device   log
pseudo-device   sl  1
pseudo-device   tun 1
pseudo-device   pty 16
pseudo-device   gzip        # Exec gzipped a.out's



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