Re: RTL-Poll Error and <sleep> for ever

[Dirk von Suchodoletz <dirk@goe.net>]

On Sat, 15 Jan 2000, Marty Connor wrote:

> 
> On 1/15/2000 3:19 PM dirk@goe.net Dirk von Suchodoletz wrote:
> >	Im using now the new etherboot 4.4.0, but I have still some
> >problems with my rtl8139 based cards: If the machine has not booted, it
> >never will be happen until comlete reboot of the computer. It shows the
> >message <sleep> on and on and sometimes rtl_poll_error ...  ny ideas?
> 
> Is this with an EPROM or a floppy?  What does "size rtl8139.tmp" say?

I use an EPROM (or to say exactly append the code to the AWARD bios, but 
it should have the same effect. I couldn't see any difference when I
last upgraded from etherboot 4.2.9 burned to EPROM to 4.4.0 added to
bios flash. This way its aesier now to update again :-)).

 $ size rtl8139.tmp 
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
  11620     432   13145   25197    626d rtl8139.tmp

> When you say "If the machine has not booted" do you mean that you turned 
> the machine on and it failed to boot the first time?  What Config options 
> are you using?  If you hit ESCAPE during the <sleep>s does it do anything?

I tried to hit ESCAPE several times without success. Config options:

# For prompting and default on timeout
CFLAGS+=        -DASK_BOOT=5 -DANS_DEFAULT=ANS_NETWORK

> To debug the receive timeouts, you can edit the file "rtl8139.c" and 
> around line 45:
> 
> change
> 
>    #undef DEBUG_RX
> to 
> 
>    #define DEBUG_RX
> 
> then do "make rtl8139.fd0" to make a test floppy.
> 
> This will turn on error message printing that may give a more specific 
> error. You can similarly also turn on DEBUG_TX to see what's happening 
> there. 
> 
> Also, you can run 'tcpdump' in order to see what's going on in the 
> conversation between the server and client.

Its difficult because we have a large network with over 150 clients, but I
will try to seperate a client and server ...
 
> If what you're saying is that when you ctrl-alt-delete your workstation 
> it doesn't do a network boot properly but that you need to do a hardware 
> reset to get it to do network boot, that could have something to do with 
> your BIOS.  What kind of machine/BIOS are you talking.  What kind of 
> rtl8139 card?  Does the same error occur with other cards?  Sorry for so 
> many questions, but good debugging requires this.

The Ctrl-Alt-Delete works fine (the switching ob NUM-Lock during the boot
prozess too). We use three types of RTL cards: Longshine, LanTech and
another NoName brand, with RTL8139 (A/B). But the all have the same
problem.

Our older clients with NE2K (PCI), SMC and 3C509 are working better...

Thank you, I will try to contribute to the other questions as soon as
possible.

Ciao,
	Dirk

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