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Date:      Fri, 30 Jul 1999 14:01:04 -0700
From:      Dan Yergeau <yergeau@gloworm.Stanford.EDU>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Cc:        yergeau@gloworm.Stanford.EDU
Subject:   problems with Netgear FA310-TX (rev D2) 
Message-ID:  <199907302101.OAA27981@gloworm.Stanford.EDU>

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I just dropped a Netgear FA310-TX (rev D2 w/the 82c169 PNIC chip)
into my machine.  It is recognized by the pn driver and negotiates
100Mbps-FD fine, but performance is *extremely* poor under FreeBSD
(tcp seems to stall due to lost[?] packets).  The interface
functions well under NT with the Netgear driver (i.e. I'm definitely
seeing 100Mbps-level performance; same machine, network port, etc.),
so it doesn't look like a problem with the card, the switch, or the
combo of the card and switch.  If it matters, according to our LNA,
the other end of the cable is plugged into a 3COM 3300.

"netstat -I pn0 -w 1" showed that some errs were being encountered
when trying to transfer data in/out, so I modified the pn driver to
print out the type of the error (instead of just incrementing
if_{i,o}errors).  The errors encountered are:
 
  PN_RXSTAT_RXERR
  PN_ISR_TX_UNDERRUN
  PN_TXSTAT_ERRSUM

The PN_ISR_TX_UNDERRUN and PN_TXSTAT_ERRSUM always occur in tandem
(and ERRSUM is not due to late or excessive collisions; it is
probably due to the underrun).

I've tried the various media and mediaopts supported by the pn driver:
  100-FD - unusable (any significant size TCP transfer in either
           direction stalls)
  100-HD - unusable (any significant size TCP transfer in either
           direction stalls).  I don't see any PN_RXSTAT_RXERR's.
           I also don't see any collisions (I'm assuming that "pacing"
           collisions for HD would be reported by netstat).
   10-FD - TCP data into(*) the NIC peaks around 500KB/s with frequent
           PN_RXSTAT_RXERR's.  Data out of the NIC peaks around
           15KB/s, but I don't see any TX or RX diagnostics, and data is
           definitely not getting out very quickly.
   10-HD - seems to work perfectly (1MB/s in either direction). No
           errors.

(*) "into" means from a remote machine into the NIC on the FreeBSD
    host 

Some of the above seems to indicate that FD flow control may not be
working on that port, but with a Sun Ultra 10 (hme) plugged into the
same port on the 3COM 3300 with the same cable, FD works just fine.
I don't know whether NT is using FD or HD.

Boot and if_pn.c version information are below.

CPU: Pentium Pro (199.43-MHz 686-class CPU)
  Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x616  Stepping=6
  Features=0xf9ff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV>
real memory  = 33554432 (32768K bytes)
avail memory = 30150656 (29444K bytes)
Probing for devices on PCI bus 0:
chip0: <Intel 82371FB PCI to ISA bridge> rev 0x02 on pci0.2.0
ahc0: <Adaptec 2940 Ultra SCSI adapter> rev 0x00 int a irq 3 on pci0.6.0
ahc0: aic7880 Single Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 16/255 SCBs
pn0: <82c169 PNIC 10/100BaseTX> rev 0x20 int a irq 9 on pci0.12.0
pn0: Ethernet address: 00:a0:cc:41:8a:95
pn0: autoneg complete, link status good (full-duplex, 100Mbps)
vga0: <Matrox MGA 2064W graphics accelerator> rev 0x01 int a irq 11 on pci0.14.0
chip1: <Intel 82453KX/GX (Orion) PCI memory controller> rev 0x04 on pci0.20.0
chip2: <Intel 82454KX/GX (Orion) host to PCI bridge> rev 0x04 on pci0.25.0
... 
[full "-v" boot at http://www-tcad.stanford.edu/~yergeau/fbsd/boot-v.txt]

if_pn.c is from 3.2-RELEASE
 *	$Id: if_pn.c,v 1.6.2.10 1999/04/14 19:44:53 wpaul Exp $

Any ideas?  Any successes or other horror stories with revision D2
of this NIC?


Cheers,

Dan





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