[2525] in linux-net channel archive
Re: Slow ethernet/NE2000 with all 1.3 kernels (1.2 is fine)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul Gortmaker)
Tue Apr 16 09:04:17 1996
From: Paul Gortmaker <gpg109@rsphy1.anu.edu.au>
To: jamie@rebellion.co.uk (Jamie Lokier)
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 16:01:58 +1000 (EST)
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu, linux-net@vger.rutgers.edu
In-Reply-To: <m0u8yVz-000Lq4C@phascolarctid.rebellion.co.uk> from "Jamie Lokier" at Apr 16, 96 00:47:00 am
>
> Dear all,
>
> Where I work, all our PC ethernet cards are NE2000 clones of one sort or
> another. I know NE2000's aren't supposed to be the fastest cards
> around, but back in the days of 1.2 kernels, `tcpspray' was able to send
> about 900k/s to an SGI, and about 850k/s to another, identical Linux
> box. There was some variation between cards from different
> manufacturers (and versions), with some getting as low as 780k/s (ish).
Yes, there will be variations from card to card. Some cards like
the older Accton ones had a "TURBO" jumper that enabled more
agressive bus timing. At a reasonable ISA speed, I have stuffed in
excess of 950kB/s into these cards. Other el-cheapo cards I have used
will plod along at about 700kB/s. At 8MHz ISA bus you can expect to do
even worse.
> has been worked on a lot and I haven't noticed anyone mention this, so
> maybe it's the NE2000 driver. Everyone seems to expect the NE2000 to be
> slow anyway, so maybe that's why nobody noticed. :-)
NE2k cards may not be a brilliant design, but they don't have to be
slow. For example, shortly after I added the PCI support to the ne
driver, Jacques Gelinas told me that he was getting 1.1megs/sec from
a hp700/60 using ftp. The linux box was a 133mhz pentium using one of
the RealTek PCI ne2000 clones. Txing to the same hp box got 950k/s.
> If someone tells me what to do, I am quite willing to do various tests
Check your ISA bus speed, and the TCP window as mentioned in the
performance tuning section of the Ethernet-HowTo.
> raw packets. Another is to try to get the 1.2.13 ne.c working with
> 1.3.
Don't waste your time. The only thing I changed in the ne driver during
the 1.3 series was to add PCI support. The last change before that was
the fix to the hard lockup problems that went in 1.2.8 or so.
Paul.
