Re: Lots of Interrupts when accessing a NFS share

[uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost (Valeriy E. Ushakov)]

Joel CARNAT <joel%carnat.net@localhost> wrote:

> When I run `find /mnt/nfs -type f -name "*whatever*"` from my C3, I see
> Interrupts going from ~200 to ~8000/10000.
[...]
> The network driver ?
> ==========
> rtk0 at pci0 dev 8 function 0: Realtek 8139 10/100BaseTX (rev. 0x10)
> rtk0: interrupting at irq 11
> rtk0: Ethernet address 00:30:18:4a:2e:88
> rlphy0 at rtk0 phy 7: Realtek internal PHY
> ==========

Oh, rtk.  You seems to have tough luck with this card (landisk has rtk
too :).  To quote a comment at the beginning of
src/sys/dev/ic/rtl81x9.c

 * The RealTek 8139 PCI NIC redefines the meaning of 'low end.' This is
 * probably the worst PCI ethernet controller ever made, with the possible
 * exception of the FEAST chip made by SMC. The 8139 supports bus-master
 * DMA, but it has a terrible interface that nullifies any performance
 * gains that bus-master DMA usually offers.
[...more rant...]

I really don't know if our rtk driver can be improved to squeeze the
last drip of performance out this card if there's still any, but that
comment certainly doesn't look encouraging.

SY, Uwe
-- 
uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost                       |       Zu Grunde kommen
http://snark.ptc.spbu.ru/~uwe/          |       Ist zu Grunde gehen