more NetGear mising ARPs

[Neale Banks]

On 12 Jun 1999, Dave Platt wrote:

> The problem we've seen here with the Netgear card (the one with the
> Netgear-labelled PNIC chip) definitely seems to be related to network
> traffic levels and the hub/switch issue.  We were seeing a lot of card
> lockups under heavy load (the "input FIFO gets confused, dumps a lot
> of garbage into the ring buffers, and the driver gets even more
> confused and stops listening") problem.

Are you saying that you're seeing this problem after the card has been
operating for a while (as distinct from my problem with initial ARPs, OTOH
I suppose your problem could be with ARPs associated with existing ARP
entries expiring?)?

> Since we rewired our network
> room, and put all of these systems on switches (thus reducing network
> contention, going full-duplex, and almost completely eliminating
> collisions) we have seen _no_ lockups at all.

"almost"?  That's somewhat unsettling as my machine in question is to be a
proxy server routinely moving >1GB/day and supposedly without hiccup. {:-(

Anyone like to suggest a practical alternative (PCI, 10/100, works
*reliably*, readily available, not outrageously expensive)?  :-|

Thanks,
Neale.