*BSD News Article 66274


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From: george@ee.ualberta.ca (Jason George)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: ed0: device timeout (help)
Date: 21 Apr 1996 16:14:15 GMT
Organization: University of Alberta Electrical Engineering Department
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Message-ID: <4ldmsn$16ku@pulp.ucs.ualberta.ca>
References: <4l695g$sup@river.biddeford.com> <Pine.BSF.3.91.960419105319.12453A-100000@enteract.com>
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Kevin Dulzo (kdulzo@enteract.com) wrote:


> On 18 Apr 1996, george p swanton wrote:


> [unecessary info cut]

> > ed0: flags 8863<up,br,not,ru,si,mul (abreviated)> MTU 1500
> >  inet 204.120.68.11 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 204.120.68.255
> >   ether 00:00:C0:0f:26:43
> > lo0: flags 8009<up,loop,mul> MTU 16384
> >    inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
> > add net 224.0.0.0: gateway unix1.hve.com
> > writeing to routing socket: file exists
> > add host unix1.hve.com: gateway localhost: file exists
> > starting routing deamons: routed ed0: device timeout
> >                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > 
> 	It's been awhile so if I'm wrong someone correct me.

> Your device doesn't have any conflicts especially if 'ifconfig' was able 
> to up the interface (i.e. ed0:...<up,...> netinfo...).  but the way to 
> verify is to watch your boot sequence and/or use 'dmesg' to verify the 
> probe results.

> 	But "ed0:devidce timeout" in my experience, assuming the device is 
> ok at boot, means it cannot access the network (no connection/bad 
> connection).  If the probe is ok -- check the cables/ports.


I have had _many_ device timeouts from _many_ different network cards.
The only thing these network cards (a selection of Intel, SMC and NE2000
clones) had in common was that they were at least 18 months old.  Some
were close to 5 years old.  FreeBSD would give me a timeout error
everytime, but Linux would work fine _with all of them_.  At first I
thought it was something to due with the fact that I'd put these old,
slow cards in a hybrid ISA/PCI-bussed computer and that it was actually
a bus problem.  Well, Linux proved that wrong.

From the fact that Linux was able to get these cards to work properly, I
would suggest that there is a small glitch somewhere in the FreeBSD
low-level drivers supporting the various hardware compnents.  A timing
problem?  I remember that the Linux crowd has a very difficult time
originally getting the Intel EE/16 NIC working properly and it turned
out to be a small timing error in the driver.  This caused network
operations to be flaky or non-existant.  I currently have an EE/16 that
works intermittantly with FreeBSD but works fine with Linux (on a
vanilla ISA bus).


Comments?


--Jason
george@ee.ualberta.ca
jbg@specialty.ab.ca