Subject: Re: poor network performance on de0's on 21164's.
To: Andrew Gallatin <gallatin@cs.duke.edu>
From: Michael T. Stolarchuk <mts@off.to>
List: port-alpha
Date: 07/09/1999 11:05:41
In message <14214.1960.794106.558635@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu>, Andrew Gallatin writes:
>
>Michael T. Stolarchuk writes:
> 
><sees terrible performance & collisions with de cards & switch in
>100/fdx mode>
>
> > 
> > Can someone explain to my what's wrong?
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > mts.
>
>
>Maybe.  Newer dec-tulips (like the 21143), cannot be reliably put into
>100-fdx mode with the current BSD driver.  I've been complaining about
>this for years.
>
>Jason Thorpe mentioned he was working on a new tulip driver.  When
>that's ready, we can hope it will fix the problem.  Until then, try
>putting your switches (&cards) into half-duplex mode.
>

ok. ... i've pulled both of the de500's in the two machines, and
they're both 21143's ... That's the problem. It explains why
we've been having problems with these cards.  Thanks, i understand now.
I'll review what info i can find about the 21143's


As for switching into half duplex; we've been running half duplex
with the 21143/de500's and have had the same performance problems.
The cards work fine for casual use, but once you try to push the
network, they 164LX 533 MHz seem to cause too many collisions.


Is there another device, for example, fxp's which do reliably swith
into 100mb-fdx ?


mts.