Re: Call for testers: Atheros AR8121(L1E)/AR8113/AR8114(L2E) ethernet

On Tue, Nov 04, 2008 at 10:36:21PM +0100, Jan Henrik Sylvester wrote:
 > Pyun YongHyeon wrote:
 > >On Mon, Nov 03, 2008 at 07:49:34PM +0100, Jan Henrik Sylvester wrote:
 > > > >Pyun YongHyeon <pyunyh at gmail.com> writes:
 > > > >> http://people.freebsd.org/~yongari/ale/if_ale.c
 > > > 
 > > > I got an Eee PC 1000H, too, with 7.1-BETA2 and just used scp to copy 
 > > > with 11.5MB/s -- much better than wlan for big files. Great!
 > > > 
 > >
 > >Thanks for testing!
 > 
 > I was happy too early. Now I keep getting these:
 > ale0: DMA read error! -- resetting
 > ale0: could not disable Tx/Rx MAC(0x00000008)!

It looks like Tx queue processing is still in progress.
Would you show me hardware MAC statistics?
("sysctl dev.ale.0.stats" will show you detailed information.)
Also ale(4) related dmesg output might be useful.

 > ale0: interrupt moderation is 100 us.
 > 
 > The speed of copying a file has dropped to <50kB/s. Stopping and 
 > restarting the interface does not help, even if I kldunload the driver 
 > in the meantime. I have yet to reboot the machine.
 > 
 > I do not know what is different, though. I left the computer alone for 
 > an hour before using the network...
 > 

Hmm, this is the first severe report that is related to stability
of driver. Personally I've nerver met this kind of error during
writing of ale(4). ATM I have no idea why DMA read error happens on
your box though. As you guess I don't have access to datasheet.

Is there any reliable way to reproduce it?
Also I've slightly changed code which may help to stop MAC in case
of critical condition. Would you get the latest if_ale.c at the
following URL and try again?
http://people.freebsd.org/~yongari/ale/if_ale.c

 > > > This will probably not go into 7.1-RELEASE, will it?
 > >
 > >It was too late to go into 7.1-RELEASE, I guess.
 > 
 > It seems to be too early, anyhow.
 > 

That's one of reason why I need more wider testing. :-)

 > Do you want me to try anything specific? (I hope it does not involve 
 > recompiling the kernel on this slow Eee PC.)
 > 

Since you're using kernel module, just unload ale(4) and
rebuilding ale(4) is enough. For example,
#cd /path/to/ale_directory/
#fetch http://people.freebsd.org/~yongari/ale/if_ale.c
#ifconfig ale0 down
#kldunload if_ale
#make && make install
#kldload if_ale
#ifconfig ale0 inet x.x.x.x netmask y.y.y.y
or
#dhclinet ale0 if you use DHCP.

-- 
Regards,
Pyun YongHyeon