On Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:48:04 +0700, Nick Holland
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Limaunion wrote:
hi all! I've been using OpenBSD during the last 2-3 years mainly running
it as a firewall.

I've an old machine (486 + 48MB RAM) and yesterday decided to make
some improvements: upgrade it from 4.0 to 4.2 (new installation) and
replace the two NICs, switching from NE2000 clones (RTL8029) to 3C905B.
The problem is that i'm getting ton of this messages which
bring down the two interfaces:

xl0: reset didn't complete
xl1: reset didn't complete
xl0: command never completed!
xl1: command never completed!

I found that man xl already has some information about 'command never
completed' but in this case the driver does not continue to function
normally. Is this problem a combination of old hardware with the xl
interfaces ? or are this interfaces crap too ? switching to a newer
machine (pentium 166) may help ? or should I buy another brand (which) ?

xl(4) devices are pretty far down the list as far as performance and
quality.  However, I haven't seen those messages in quite some time,
and never saw them as fatal failures as you are.

HOWEVER, that being said, I haven't seen a 486 with a good PCI bus in
a while, either.  Most of the "real" 486 systems with PCI busses
probably worked for something in some way on some OS, but not for me.
(I have a few AMD5x86-oriented boards that appear to have a very
functional PCI bus, but those were in the Pentium days.  Actually,
on closer examination, you may have one of those boards.)

SO, I'm going to guess it is a combination of a cranky driver in a
slightly non-standard PCI bus.

For a quick fix, let's look back to your RT8029 cards.  While the
RT8029 is probably about the worst performing NIC to ever go on a
PCI bus, it will handle most home-grade uses just fine.  I suspect
the PCI bus on the things will give them better performance than any
ISA card, and I've moved a lot of data through ISA cards in the past.

So, were you having a problem with the RT8029s, or just trying to
put in a "better" card?  Odds are, if you need the performance of a
100Mbps card, you may be needing a new computer (in which case, your
P166 is probably great).  If you didn't NEED the performance, put
the 8029-based cards back in.

Hm. Looking at your dmesg, I see
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (bios)
which I don't recall having seen before...might be worth checking
to see if the BIOS has a "PNP Aware OS" mode for the BIOS.  (heh,
just spot checked a couple machines, they both have this line, but
both say "(no bios)".  So much for my memory, which should lead one
to doubt my interpretation, but still might be an interesting test.

Once I get some space on a shelf, might have to plug one of my
similar looking boards in, see what it does. :)



Thanks in advance for any help!.
Jorge

PS: on 2006-01-06 I reported a keyboard problem with OpenBSD 3.8, the
problem is still present with 4.2:
http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=113658848307726&w=2

Dang, I think I remember that.  Had me scratching back then, too.
Not doing any better now...

This might be a stinker of a MoBo.  We just don't have too many
keyboard problems reported...

Nick.


OpenBSD 4.2 (GENERIC) #375: Tue Aug 28 10:38:44 MDT 2007
     [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
cpu0: Intel 486DX (486-class)
real mem  = 49905664 (47MB)
avail mem = 39297024 (37MB)
mainbus0 at root
bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+ BIOS, date 07/25/94, BIOS32 rev. 0 @ 0xf7810
apm0 at bios0: Power Management spec V1.0
apm0: AC on, battery is unknown
apm0: flags 30100 dobusy 0 doidle 1
pcibios0 at bios0: rev 2.0 @ 0xf0000/0x10000
pcibios0: pcibios_get_intr_routing - function not supported
pcibios0: PCI IRQ Routing information unavailable.
pcibios0: PCI bus #0 is the last bus
WARNING: can't reserve area for I/O APIC.
WARNING: can't reserve area for Local APIC.
bios0: ROM list: 0xc0000/0x8000
cpu0 at mainbus0
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (bios)
xl0 at pci0 dev 13 function 0 "3Com 3c905B 100Base-TX" rev 0x30: irq 11,
address 00:01:02:6e:c5:08
exphy0 at xl0 phy 24: 3Com internal media interface
xl1 at pci0 dev 14 function 0 "3Com 3c905B 100Base-TX" rev 0x30: irq 9,
address 00:01:02:87:fc:88
exphy1 at xl1 phy 24: 3Com internal media interface
vga1 at pci0 dev 15 function 0 "ATI Mach64 GP" rev 0x5c
wsdisplay0 at vga1 mux 1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay0: screen 1-5 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
pchb0 at pci0 dev 16 function 0 "UMC UM8881F Host" rev 0x01
pcib0 at pci0 dev 18 function 0 "UMC UM8886" rev 0x01
isa0 at pcib0
isadma0 at isa0
pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60/5
pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0
wdc0 at isa0 port 0x1f0/8 irq 14
wd0 at wdc0 channel 0 drive 0: <WDC AC310200R>
wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 9787MB, 20044080 sectors
wd0(wdc0:0:0): using BIOS timings
pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
midi0 at pcppi0: <PC speaker>
spkr0 at pcppi0
npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0/16: using exception 16
biomask f5fd netmask fffd ttymask ffff
pctr: no performance counters in CPU
dkcsum: wd0 matches BIOS drive 0x80
root on wd0a swap on wd0b dump on wd0b


I've run to this kind of problem before, using oBSD 4.1 AMD64.MP kernel,
and resolve by replacing xl interface with new card, and everything is ok
now...

--
Insan Praja SW

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