RE: 8390 & SMP

Eugene Kuznetsov (eugene@datapower.com)
Mon, 30 Aug 1999 20:30:04 -0400

On Monday, August 30, 1999 7:48 PM, Rik van Riel
[SMTP:riel@humbolt.nl.linux.org] wrote:
> I'm currently experiencing some _bad_ problems with a 8390
> card (NE2000 clone) and a dual Pentium machine (Intel Neptune).
In late 2.1.x, I tracked down some horrible nastiness with 8390 and SMP,
which Alan rectified. Our problem had to do with switching between page 0
and page 1 in the 8390 and, among other things, destroying the multicast
table. But there were some other SMP-related issues with the 8390.

> Is this a bug in the SMP-readiness of the NE driver or is it
> simply a too flakey MB/card/driver combination?
I wouldn't be suprised if even in 2.2.x/2.3.x various bad things happen
with SMP and 8390-based cards. It's an awful, awful chip when it comes to
SMP operation, and it may need some more spinlocks to avoid yet another
intermittent failure.

Eugene Kuznetsov
eugene@datapower.com

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