igb broken? Unexplained weirdness with intel 82576 nics on a
supermicro board.
Jack Vogel
jfvogel at gmail.com
Sun May 9 17:14:36 UTC 2010
On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 2:54 AM, joe <joe at hostedcontent.com> wrote:
> On 05/08/2010 02:21 PM, Jack Vogel wrote:
>
>> The cable, its a simple thing but make SURE you try that, a slightly
>> damaged one can do weird things and its quick to check, don't overlook
>> it.
>>
>> Jack
>>
>>
>> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:22 AM, joe <joe at hostedcontent.com
>> <mailto:joe at hostedcontent.com>> wrote:
>>
>> On 05/08/2010 01:53 PM, Jack Vogel wrote:
>>
>> I still am not clear on this system, how many ports are on it,
>> and its
>> an 82576?
>> Sounds to me like you've proven its not on the box if you can do
>> fine
>> when its
>> on its own. So change ports in the switch, as I said, change
>> cables, must be
>> something in that environment.
>>
>> Jack
>>
>>
>> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:04 AM, joe <joe at hostedcontent.com
>> <mailto:joe at hostedcontent.com>
>> <mailto:joe at hostedcontent.com <mailto:joe at hostedcontent.com>>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> On 05/08/2010 01:31 PM, Jack Vogel wrote:
>>
>> Looks like something to do with system C, you might
>> isolate it,
>> and try
>> a back
>> to back connection with its NICs, change cables, look at
>> BIOS
>> settings,
>> change
>> the slot the nic is in... All just off the top of my head.
>>
>> Jack
>>
>>
>> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 9:41 AM, joe
>> <joe at hostedcontent.com <mailto:joe at hostedcontent.com>
>> <mailto:joe at hostedcontent.com <mailto:joe at hostedcontent.com>>
>> <mailto:joe at hostedcontent.com <mailto:joe at hostedcontent.com>
>> <mailto:joe at hostedcontent.com <mailto:joe at hostedcontent.com>>>>
>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> On 05/08/2010 11:17 AM, Ian FREISLICH wrote:
>>
>> joe wrote:
>>
>> On 05/08/2010 06:55 AM, Ian FREISLICH wrote:
>>
>> joe wrote:
>>
>> I have just tried your
>> suggeston and
>> it has
>> no effect for me ;(
>>
>>
>> Do you have another brand of NIC that
>> you can
>> try? At
>> least that
>> will isolate whether it's igb(4) or
>> something else.
>>
>>
>> I will grab a new nic today and try...my
>> options are
>> limited
>> though.
>> Here are the nics i can get my hands on
>>
>> TP-LINK TL-TG3468, 10/100/1000Mbps PCIe Adapter
>> (supported
>> by fbsd?)
>>
>>
>> Based on the RTL8168B chip. Should be supported
>> by the
>> re(4)
>> driver.
>>
>> Intel (EXPI9301CT) Gigabit CT Desktop
>> Adapter (yet
>> another
>> intel nic)
>>
>>
>> i82574L chip. Should be supported by the em(4)
>> driver.
>> I have had
>> good performance in the past with this driver
>> and less than
>> satisfactory performance with the igb(4) driver.
>>
>> That may not be your problem though. Before you
>> go out
>> and buy,
>> have a look at the amount of interrupt time your
>> slow
>> machine spends
>> in 'top' or 'systat -vm'. systat will also show
>> the
>> interrupt rate
>> for each driver, perhaps it's not doing
>> interrupt moderation
>> properly.
>> This will manifest as more than about a 1000 per
>> second.
>> There are
>> loader tunables for the driver to increase the
>> number of
>> transfer
>> descriptors and to tune interrupt moderation.
>>
>> You could try running trafshow (port) on the
>> interface while
>> performing the transfer. Perhaps promiscuous
>> mode will
>> turn off
>> some hardware feature that will improve things.
>> It may
>> however
>> break hardware vlanning as it does on my 82575GB
>> 4 port
>> igb card.
>>
>> Ian
>>
>> --
>> Ian Freislich
>>
>>
>> I bought those two cards anyways, im in a rush to
>> figure out
>> this
>> problem. That being said i am still encountering the
>> exact same
>> problem regardless on which network card i am
>> running. I am at a
>> complete loss. I am about to try a raid card to see
>> if the
>> problem
>> might lay within the onboard sata ports. I did pull the
>> server and
>> brought it home so that i can test more things quicker.
>>
>> I am going to try using a raid card instead of the
>> onboard sata
>> ports and see if i still encounter the same problem.
>> I would
>> love
>> any suggestions you may have on where to go from here
>> to
>> figure out
>> where the problem might be.
>>
>> joe
>>
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>>
>>
>> I think it might have something to so with the nics /
>> switch, and
>> their features. I brought the box home, plugged into my gb
>> switch,
>> and i am able to FTP data to the server at around 35MB/sec.
>>
>> I dont know what would cause this other than some sort of
>> issue with
>> the the 3 different types of nics and the switch i am using.
>>
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>>
>>
>> There are two embedded intel 82576 nics on this motherboard. I do
>> believe i have proven it is not the box itself as it is capable of
>> high incoming throughput. I have other servers on the switch which
>> do 55MB/sec without issues. I believe it is a combination of this
>> server and/or the nics i have and the switch i am using. It's the
>> only logical explanation if i get the desired throughput on my home
>> switch but not on the switch that is collocated. I will try updating
>> the firmware of the switch tonight as well as bringing the switch i
>> use at home with me.
>>
>>
>>
> Here is a follow-up just incase anyone ever encounters this problem again.
> I updated the firmware on the switch, made sure jumbo packets were enabled,
> and the switch was restarted. I'm now seeing the throughput i had expected
> on this box!
>
> 897755008 bytes received in 00:11 (72.74 MB/s)
>
> Once again, thank you all for the help!
>
> Joe
>
Glad the issue is resolved Joe.
Jack
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