On Fri, Oct 29, 1999 at 11:56:26AM -0700, Hal Murray wrote:
> 
> [Tulip kicking up the when-to-start-sending knob.]
> 
> > This happens minutes after the machine is up with only the most minor bit
> > of traffic on the wire.  After it has step to "store-and-forward" there is
> > no further such changes.
> 
> When/if that happens depends upon the speed of the PCI/memory interface 
> on your system.
> 
> The machines I normally work with don't go through that dance until 
> I put a lot of network traffic through the Tulip, and even then it 
> probably needs some other PCI work to provoke it. 

Or a broken PCI chipset or BIOS.

I had a motherboard once that did this *all the time*.  I just looked
and it appears to mis-set the PCI latency timer for all non-builtin
PCI devices to 0.  Somehow I am not surprised that the Tulip might have
trouble pushing data across the bus fast enough, if it has to relinquish
it after every cycle...

-- 
Thor Lancelot Simon	                                      tls@rek.tjls.com
	"And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?"