From owner-freebsd-alpha  Sun Feb 17 10:42:24 2002
Delivered-To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org
Received: from iona.dcs.gla.ac.uk (iona.dcs.gla.ac.uk [130.209.240.35])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 46FE337B4BE
	for <freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org>; Sun, 17 Feb 2002 10:41:04 -0800 (PST)
Received: from therese.dcs.gla.ac.uk ([130.209.241.134] helo=therese.dcs.gla.ac.uk.dcs.gla.ac.uk)
	by iona.dcs.gla.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.13 #1)
	id 16cWFD-0005T0-00; Sun, 17 Feb 2002 18:41:03 +0000
Received: by therese.dcs.gla.ac.uk.dcs.gla.ac.uk (8.11.6/Dumb)
	id g1HIf0h07629; Sun, 17 Feb 2002 18:41:00 GMT
To: Andrew Gallatin <gallatin@cs.duke.edu>
Cc: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/alpha/include cpufunc.h
References: <200202120120.g1C1Ko136446@freefall.freebsd.org>
	<20020211204721.A49383@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu>
From: Rolf Neugebauer <neugebar@dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 17 Feb 2002 18:40:59 +0000
In-Reply-To: <20020211204721.A49383@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu>
Message-ID: <ysqr8nkj6is.fsf@therese.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Lines: 42
User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
List-ID: <freebsd-alpha.FreeBSD.ORG>
List-Archive: <http://docs.freebsd.org/mail/> (Web Archive)
List-Help: <mailto:majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG?subject=help> (List Instructions)
List-Subscribe: <mailto:majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG?subject=subscribe%20freebsd-alpha>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG?subject=unsubscribe%20freebsd-alpha>
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org

Andrew Gallatin <gallatin@cs.duke.edu> writes:

> Andrew Gallatin [gallatin@FreeBSD.org] wrote:
> > gallatin    2002/02/11 17:20:50 PST
> > 
> >   Modified files:        (Branch: RELENG_4)
> >     sys/alpha/include    cpufunc.h 
> >   Log:
> >   add enable_intr() and disable_intr() which are required for DEVICE_POLL
> >   in -stable
> 
> FWIW, device_polling works just fine on alpha.  I'm sticking to the
> mandatory MFC waiting period before committing the files file changes
> though.. 
> 
> Interrupts are very expensive on alpha because of the interaction with
> palcode.  People who are using alphas as routers should benefit
> greatly from polling.  Here is a brief glimpse at the performance
> improvement polling gives you when blasting UDP packets at a 500MHz
> monet receiver, dc0 100Mb/full duplex:


I upgraded my LX164 with dc network card to 4.5-STABLE yesterday
(fresh cvsup) and enabled device polling (out of curiosity).

I observe occasional error messages like:
[...]
poll stalled [1] in phase 5
poll stalled [2] in phase 4
[...]
poll stalled [3] in phase 6

coinciding with NFS/RPC timeout errors. 

I wonder if these are related (disabling device polling "solved" the
problem).

Just curious, I can live without device polling on my box as it is
just a normal workstation.

Cheers
Rolf

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message