From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 30 12:38:19 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ABC671065672 for ; Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:38:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from QMTA06.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net (qmta06.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net [76.96.62.56]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E6B58FC2A for ; Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:38:18 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from OMTA05.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.62.43]) by QMTA06.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id Yyv21a0050vyq2s560doGS; Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:37:48 +0000 Received: from koitsu.dyndns.org ([69.181.141.110]) by OMTA05.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id Z0eF1a0082P6wsM3R0eG10; Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:38:16 +0000 X-Authority-Analysis: v=1.0 c=1 a=7SRNBM38j5QA:10 a=8hVJmw3GCh4A:10 a=6I5d2MoRAAAA:8 a=QycZ5dHgAAAA:8 a=O48Jkx2st6OzPPydjoMA:9 a=n6dSNey-uGRA4mDDMyB0fU-it7EA:4 a=EoioJ0NPDVgA:10 a=LY0hPdMaydYA:10 Received: by icarus.home.lan (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 5CA2DC9419; Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:38:15 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:38:15 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: Graham Bentley Message-ID: <20081030123815.GA4568@icarus.home.lan> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) Cc: PYUN Yong-Hyeon , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Marvell 88E8052 PCI-E LAN on FreeBSD 7.0 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:38:19 -0000 On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 11:33:34AM -0000, Graham Bentley wrote: > Hi ALl, > > I have a DFI LanParty Mobo that includes Marvells 88E8052 > and 88E8053 LAN IF. > > Using the module with 7.0 [msk] the network preformance > is terrible, Opera / Links stall, or wont page load at > all although pings to the router are fine? > > I then tried using Marvells own driver the website [myk] > and the results where about the same. > > Just before I was about to give up and put in my trusty > old 3Com 3C509 [xl] I noticed that in the Marvell doco > there where several tunable params so decided to try > out a few. > > I discovered that adding -txcsum and -rxcsum (i.e. > disabling hardware checksuming) to the ifconfig > statement, the performance was as quick as it is > on that other OS! Yong-Hyeon Pyun can probably explain what's going on here. I've CC'd him on this mail; he usually hangs out on -stable though. You need to keep something in mind here: Marvell does not give out documentation for their cards publicly, so Yong-Hyeon has to reverse-engineer and "tinker" with what he already knows. Some hardware feature do not work, others are buggy, others work fine on specific revisions of the chip while later ones break. And if you tell me "Well Linux has support for this chip!", I will throw the following evidence back in your face: Marvell and other companies are giving Linux developers development PCI cards to develop drivers with (sometimes even before the card is out in the market), so Linux has the upper hand here. They are not doing this with the BSDs. Purely as an example: in my Wiki, section "Network devices", see the entry for the 88E8040 NIC. I'm still working with Yong-Hyeon to try to get him access to a laptop that has this chip so he can write the driver. http://wiki.freebsd.org/JeremyChadwick/Commonly_reported_issues This should give you some idea of the complexities. As I said, Linux has the upper hand, because they're getting support from Marvell. > It seems that hw cs is on by default so I added the > above to my ifoncfig line in /etc/rc.conf and now > all is snappy! > > I was wondering how could this be the case and also > if anyone else had this issue with Marvell chips? I would urge you to go out and purchase an Intel Pro/1000 PT card, which runs for around 30-40 USD. It's good to have a spare NIC on hand anyways -- your 3C509 xl(4) based NIC probably won't cut it, especially if you're complaining about performance. :-) No one uses those cards any more except individuals running on hardware from 1997, which you are obviously not. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |