Re: Linux 2.6.9 Adaptec 4 Port Starfire Sickness

[Willy Tarreau]

On Sat, Apr 02, 2005 at 11:58:44PM -0700, jmerkey wrote:
> 
> It works fine with the Intel Dual Port Pro-1000 MT adapters without 
> these problems.

but unless I'm mistaken, there's no PCI bridge on this board, and it is
possible that the two ports share the same IRQ, that's why I suggested
trying a 4-port sun QFE or something which is more similar to the starfire.

> I am using testing scenarios
> with Jumbo Frames as well. I am guessing the PCI bus contention is high 
> due to the disk I/O bandwidth and
> this is causing conditions the adapter does not normally see. 

As I said, I have been saturating this card for weeks during stress tests
and although it spitted out lots of messages, it never hanged (at least on
recent 2.4 kernels, because very early 2.4 were a real pain with this one).

> Documentation states that this message should be very
> rare, and not spool off into the logs at this rate.

perhaps you have a mix of small and large frames which makes the driver
constantly change the fifo size, and this part is not handled properly ?

Willy

> See http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/HOWTO/Ethernet-HOWTO-8.html
> 
> Jeff
> 
> Willy Tarreau wrote:
> 
> >Hi Jeff,
> >
> >I've also experienced those messages under 2.4, but they were harmless,
> >and I never had a machine hang even after weeks of full load (the adapter
> >was mounted on a stress test machine before being used in firewalls for
> >months).
> >
> >So I wonder how you can be sure that it is this driver which finally 
> >locks
> >the bus. Perhaps the system locks for any other reason (eg: race 
> >condition).
> >Have you tried with any other 4-port NIC (tulip or sun for example) ? Sun
> >QFE would be the most interesting to test as it also supports 64 bits /
> >66 MHz.
> >
> >Regards,
> >Willy
> >
> >On Sat, Apr 02, 2005 at 09:41:28PM -0700, jmerkey wrote:
> > 
> >
> >>With linux 2.6.9 running at 192 MB/S network loading and protocol 
> >>splitting drivers routing packets out of
> >>a 2.6.9 device at full 100 mb/s (12.5 MB/S) simultaneously over 4 
> >>ports, the adaptec starfire driver goes into
> >>constant Tx FIFO reconfiguration mode and after 3-4 days of constantly 
> >>resetting the Tx FIFO window and
> >>generating a deluge of messages such as:
> >>
> >>ethX:  PCI bus congestion, resetting Tx FIFO window to X bytes
> >>
> >>pouring into the system log file at a rate of a dozen per minute.  
> >>After several days, the PCI bus totally locks up
> >>and hangs the system.  Need a config option to allow the starfire to 
> >>disable this feature.  At very
> >>high bus loading rates, the starfire card will completely lock the bus 
> >>after 3-4 days
> >>of constant Tx FIFO reconfiguration at very high data rates with 
> >>protocol splitting and routing.
> >>
> >>Jeff
> >>-
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> >>
> >
> > 
> >
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