tulip v0.90q with Linksys 10/100 LAN Card (LNE100TX)

[Christopher C. Chen]

Hi All, (I hope this is right forum for this)

Setup:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have 2 redhat 5.2 (2.0.36) machines with tulip v0.90q loaded:

   alias eth0 tulip
   options tulip debug=1 options=14

Both have the Linksys 10/100 LAN Card (LNE100TX).  They are
connected with the Linksys EtherFast 10/100 5-port Auto-Sensing
Hub.  The cable lengths for machine A to hub is 6 feet and 
machine B to hub 100 feet.

Usage:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I am delivering video data via the regular socket calls between the
machines using the "tcp" protocol.  There are video servers and
clients on both machines (video conferencing).

Problems:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1. When the data is flowing one way only (one active client from one
   machine only), everything works fine.
   I estimate it is probably delivering 320*240*24-bit*15-frame/sec,
   about 27,648,000 bit-per-sec of data excluding the packet overheads.
2. But when the data is flowing both ways (each machine has an active
   client requesting data from its respective remote server), the 
   network comes the a stop.  When I ping from one machine to
   the other, all packets are lost.
3. So, I tried reducing the load by sending one frame every 2 seconds.
   That would come to about 921,600 bit-per-sec of data both upstream
   and downstream.  It would work for a few minutes, then the network
   would stop.  Once again, all packets are lost when I ping from one
   to the other.  I would reboot the machines to get the network back.

Questions:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1. What can I do to diagnose the problems?
2. How do I tell whether it is the hardware, the driver, or the 
   socket layer?
3. Are there well tested network performance utility available that
   I can use?  After all, I can't say for sure that it is not my
   program.

This is a school project I am working on.  Any help or comments will
be greatly appreciated.

Christopher C.