[vortex] 3c59x LK1.1.16 Linux-2.4 PCI bus error/Host error

[Donald Becker]

On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Anup Pemmaiah wrote:

> Subject: RE: [vortex] 3c59x LK1.1.16 Linux-2.4 PCI bus error/Host error
> 
> I have a similar problem as that of Eddie. I have 3c905 - 100 Base TX 
> Boomerang NIC. I use 3c59x driver for this. Installation works on
> fine. When I  start a tranmission, either the DHCP daemon to get th IP
> address or just try  
> to transmit some message I get the PCI bus error/Host error as shown below. 
> When the error occurs the status register will have the value 0xe803 and the 
> FIFO diagnostic register will have 2000.

>     When I went through the specifications of the driver, the first
> bit of the  
> status register says the interrupt is latched and the second bit specifies 
> that there is a host error.

Correct.

>     When I checked the reason for the Host error in the FIFO
> doagnostic register where the 13th bit is set, it states that the
> interrupt was generated because of "rxUnderrun".Since the reason it
> states that the "Host is trying to read from the receive FIFO faster
> than the network can fill it and therefore the host reads invalid
> data", should I reduce the reading speed of the Host?

This error can only occur when the host is using programmed-I/O to read
the data from the NIC.  The driver you are using should be using
the bus-master capability, and never reading from the Rx FIFO.

Something unusual is going on here.  Unless Andrew or Bogdan has an
idea, you should try the Scyld 3c59x.c driver to see if the problem
exists with that driver as well.
 http://www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
    ftp://ftp.scyld.com/pub/network/3c59x.c

> Jul 27 22:55:42 Anup kernel: eth0: Host error, FIFO diagnostic register 2000.
> Jul 27 22:55:42 Anup kernel: eth0: PCI bus error, bus status 00a00029

Hmmm, there is nothing unusual reported in that status.
Specifically, it is not reporting a PCI bus error.
This is not similar to the previous problem.

-- 
Donald Becker				becker@scyld.com
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Second Generation Beowulf Clusters
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993