Re: 3com 3c905TX: low performance with 3x59x driver

On Thu, 4 Sep 2003, [koi8-r] "Dmitry Teslya[koi8-r] "  wrote:

> My problem is the very low performance of my 3com 3c905TX NIC. The
> maximum speed it can achieve is about 1.5 Mb/s which is very low,
> because we have 100Mbit network here (in WinXp I get about 7Mb/s). 

The ususal suspect is a forced duplex setting, but the diagnostic shows
normal negotiated connection.

What does /proc/net/dev report about errors?

> I run Slackware Linux 9.0 with kernel 2.4.21 from kernel.org.
> Here is the outputs of the most essential commands:
..
> 01:0a.0: 3Com PCI 3c905 Boomerang 100baseTx at 0xdc00. Vers LK1.1.16

A slightly older card, but even the original 3c905 card had excellent
performance.

>   product code 4b4b rev 00.0 date 01-04-80

Hmmm, that's curious.

> #vortex-diag -aae
...
>   Receive mode is 0x07: Normal unicast and all multicast.
> The Vortex chip may be active, so FIFO registers will not be read.
> To see all register values use the '-f' flag.
> Initial window 4, registers values by window:
...
>   Window 6: 0000 0000 0000 1c00 0000 0734 0000 c000.

No obvious errors.  The 1c00 is the Tx packet count, 0734 the Rx bytes.

> Transceiver type in use:  MII.
>  MAC settings: full-duplex.
...
>  MII PHY 0 at #24 transceiver registers:
>    3100 786f 2000 5c01 01e1 45e1 0001 0000

Our link partner is a 10/100 switch that supports flow control.
The chip is set to full duplex, as we expect with a capable partner.

> Saved EEPROM settings of a 3Com Vortex/Boomerang:
>  3Com Node Address 00:60:08:7C:F8:51 (used as a unique ID only).
>  OEM Station address 00:60:08:7C:F8:51 (used as the ethernet address).
>   Device ID 9050,  Manufacturer ID 6d50.
>   Manufacture date (MM/DD/YYYY) 1/4/2080, division 6, product KK.

This is slightly broken. Something seems to have modified this field in
configuration EEPROM.  But all of the important settings appear to be
correct.

> The only close problem I found was here
> http://www.scyld.com/pipermail/vortex/2003-July/002481.html. But as I
> understand it is not my case because I have no problems with
> autonegotiation.

Correct.

> The weird thing is that everything tells me that it must work fine but
> it doesn't.

Yup.  Been dropping some acid lately?  Off your medication?  Lost your
glasses?  Alternate reality?  Think you are still back in the war?

> I also tried the 3com's driver 
...
> #insmod 3c90x
...
> /lib/modules/2.4.21/kernel/drivers/net/3c90x.o: init_module: No such device

3Com has the luxury of only supporting current production devices.  It's
much easier and more fun to only play with the latest..

-- 
Donald Becker				[email protected]
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
914 Bay Ridge Road, Suite 220		Scyld Beowulf cluster system
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993

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