[eepro100] About eepro "out of resources" bug

[Alvin Oga]

hi ya...

just a comment....

- am using  ca810eal and D815eeaal  ( onboard nics )

- i've not seen the "out of resources" warning since
  2.2.19 and 2.4.x.... 

- the out of resources errors occured regularly on
  2.2.16/2.2.17/22.18 for stuff we did...
	- simple booting can cause those messages

- using a "module" instead of compiling the driver into
  the kernel solved the problem for us..

- under heavy network usage...say machines sending 2Gb files
  to each other.... than some nic fails...but the intel
  motherboards keeps chuggign away...no problem..

- i'd guess that you cannot ignore the "out of resources"
  warnings as your network is extremely slow and noticable
  when you see those warnings... and/or your machine
  is basically ususable since those messages keep popping
  up in the screen you are looking at...

have fun
alvin
http://www.Linux-1U.net..

On Tue, 4 Sep 2001, Kallol Biswas wrote:

> Hi,
>   The driver reporting "card out of receive resources"
> is not a bug, rather it is a design issue. Let me explain,
> correct me if I am wrong:
> 
> Both CPU and the card work on the same receive 
> resource at the same time, called RFD(receive descriptor list). The card
> keeps consuming the resources, and the cpu keeps replenishing
> them. The cpu tells the card "this" is the last RFD you can
> consume, by setting a bit called EL(end of list) bit on the
> last RFD. Consider the scenario, the cpu is too busy in
> a heavily loaded system, and does not have much time to
> pay attention to card's frame received interrupt and can't
> replenish a new buffer and so can not move the EL bit
> from the last entry. The card consumes the RFDs at a rate
> faster than the cpu supplies them, as a result the card hits
> the RFD with EL bit and the driver reports the card is in 
> "out of receive resource".  Correct me if I am wrong, as
> I don't know how linux driver works well.
> 
> I think you can ignore the messages. I have a eepr100.c driver (version
> v1.10a 4/15/00) that does not have any out of resource message.
> 
> Kallol
> 
>    
> > 
> > 
> > Hello all,
> > 
> > I  discovered this list by doing a web search for info related
> > to the "out of resources" bug on Linux with the eepro100
> > adapter.   What I gathered from reading the messages
> > was that the cause of the bug has not been identified,
> > and it was hard to reproduce, but some people thought
> > it might be related to heavy network use.   I wanted to
> > communicate the fact that I seem to be able to reliably
> > reproduce this bug on my machine in an odd and
> > unexpected way:   by playing the game Myth2 from 
> > Loki Games in solo player mode for a few hours and 
> > not doing any explicity, user initiated, network 
> > access (the game may be doing  something I don't know 
> > about, but I don't know of any  reason for it to do so).   
> > I am running a Linux 2.4.9 kernel with the driver compiled 
> > into the kernel itself.  I've set up interrupts so the card is 
> > not sharing.  As another poster mentioned,  I can clear 
> > the adapter by restarting networking on my Debian 
> > system.  I have not experienced any other bugs related 
> > to this card, or managed to trigger the bug in any other 
> > way.   I do have a Sounblaster Live Value card installed
> > on this machine. I have read that this card tends to use
> > up a lot of PCI resources and generate a lot of traffic.
> > I may try to play the game without the card installed and
> > see whether this setup fails to trigger the bug.
> > 
> > Just wanted to communicate this info in case it provides
> > some different insight into possible causes of the problem.
> >  I'm not subscribed to this list, so please copy
> > me at jstern@citilink.com on any follow-up e-mail that
> > required a response.
> > 
> > Sincerely,
> > 
> > -= Josh Stern
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > eepro100 mailing list
> > eepro100@scyld.com
> > http://www.scyld.com/mailman/listinfo/eepro100
> > 
> 
> 
> --
> Phone: 973-443-7469         |  Design Engineer
> Telnet: 1-443-7469          |  EIAL UNIX OS LAB
> www.kallolbiswas.com        |  Hewlett Packard Company
> kallol_biswas@hp.com        |  Florham Park, NJ
> 
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