TULIP Driver problem on SMP Linux ??

[Bernd Oelker Sytemadministrator]

Hallo,

we use a Intel SMP Linux v2.0.35 Server as workgroup server.
(2x Intel PII 333 MHz).
There are 2 Network cards installed to support 10 & 100 Mbit Ethernet.
(Inclusive som traffic 10 Mbit <=> 100 Mbit through this server)
Both Cards are build by Zynx :
ZX312 (10    Mbit DEC 21040) and
ZX345 (100 Mbit 21140 I think) driven by your tulip Driver (up to
version 0.89H).

The Problem:
While enabling SMP, after some time (normally between 1 up to 3 days !!)

the server stops
without doing anything.
(no kernel panic, no reaction on anything, no syslog messages, like
there is
a while infinity loop in an intterupt)
To find the source of the error we tried out systematically many things:

1.) change to a new different mainboard, power supply throug UPS,
Network throug filters ...
2.) disabling systematically ervery hardware driver installed in the
system
      (SCSI, our own written ARCnet driver, ....)

=> we find out, that your tulip driver seems to be the source of our
problem, because
       if we use the de4x5 - Driver for both cards we havenīt any
problems any more !!
After we find out this, we enable every driver, and the system runs
without any problems
over 2 weeks now (then after a short shutdown over 1 week again)

If we use your tulip Driver without SMP, we got not problems at all.
(we havenīt any problems too, if only 1 CPU is running on a SMP Linux
with your
driver)

Iīm sure, that there must be a bug in
a.) your driver,
b.) in the 2.0.35 SMP Kernel

concerning our perhaps special environment.

I just want to inform you about our results, because the error case
arise very rarely after
many MB transfered through the network devices  (we are working with
Samba, X11, ISDN ...).
Perhaps this information helps you to find any remaining error in your
kernel driver
concerning SMP ?

We need about 3 weeks of really systematically tests (with a reduced
Server) to find out
the reason for our problem.
Now we continue with the alternative driver de4x5, because then we
havenīt
any problems at all (with the same hardware & software environment
except tulip => de4x5).


ciao Bernd Oelker

E-mail: Bernd.Oelker@hspg.de