[eepro100] eepro100 and Intel STL2

[Donald Becker]

On Wed, 2 May 2001 wfrancis@incyte.com wrote:

> I have a large batch of new Intel STL2 motherboards which
> come with an integrated eepro100 adapter using the
> 82559 chipset. I'm having a problem using kickstart with
> both Red Hat versions 6.2 and 7.1. Under 6.2, the install
> will not get off the ground at all and will simply not
> receive any packets

This is caused by a two different timing problems in the '559 chip.

It has taken a little time to track this down, because the no-Rx
problem is related to the processor speed and how long the interface is
down.  It's difficult to reproduce by hand, because the interface is
down for a few milliseconds, but 'pump' cycles the interface quickly
enough to show the problem.

A second timing problem will hang the PCI bus, but this is mostly
unrelated to the no-Rx problem.

> At this point, I'm nearly out of ideas, and people _really_
> want these 180 processors online...

Our 27Bz-8 Scyld Beowulf version includes the corrections, and STL2
systems are now in our testing lab.

Donald Becker				becker@scyld.com
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Second Generation Beowulf Clusters
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993