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From: j@bonnie.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Installing Etherlink II C503 Controller?
Date: 29 Jun 1995 11:25:07 +0200
Organization: Private U**x site, Dresden.
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <3strhj$amc@bonnie.tcd-dresden.de>
References: <3rql0a$do@gandalf.pic.net> <3rsjvf$jjf@bonnie.tcd-dresden.de> <3s77rd$a01@gandalf.pic.net> <3snt8u$i5m@bpeters.uucp>
Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de
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Bruce Peterson <peterson@bpeters.uucp> wrote:
>In article <3s77rd$a01@gandalf.pic.net>, <mglaris@pic.net> wrote:
>>
>>This one I managed to figure out. As it turns out, the C503 is too slow
>>to be used with a Pentium 90 system.
>[trimmed]
>
>I am running an old 3C503 8-bit card in my company's Internet gateway
>computer, which is a Dell Dimension P90. I have not had any problems
>with it, but to be fair, it is running SCO UNIX and not FreeBSD (but
>not for long).
You think SCO is slow enough for the slow card? :-)
Anyway, you are only supposed to have problems when NFS-mounting via
this card from a fast server (e.g. a workstation) that can pump the 6
UDP packets for the default NFS block size of 8 KB quickly on the
wire. The 8 KB buffer of the 3C503 will overflow (since a part is
reserved as Tx buffer), causing the NFS block to never arrive
completely. Since the NFS server is only ``thinking'' in NFS blocks,
it is unable to retransmit parts of it, and the system will hang
forever. Mounting with a smaller blocksize fixes this. Reducing it
to 1 KB seems to be most logical, since NFS blocks will then fit
into a single UDP packet.
--
cheers, J"org private: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de
http://www.sax.de/~joerg/
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)