100 Base/T interface problem on C180

[Brendan Newport]

I have a customer with a HP PCI 10/100Base/T interface in his C180 workstation.

The workstation hadn't been rebooted since the original installation, but yesterday it was for essential maintenance. On restart the performance through the interface is desperately slow.

lanadmin details (extract);

Network Management ID = 5
Description = lan1 Hewlett-Packard 10/100 TX Full-Duplex Hw Rev 0. TT = 1500
Type (value) = ethernet-csmacd(6)
MTU Size = 1500
Speed = 100
Station Address = 0x108

The card is configured at startup through an /etc/rc.config.d/hppci100conf file (in turn called by the startup script in /sbin/rc2.d ;

HP_PCI100_INTERFACE_NAME[0]=lan1
HP_PCI100_STATION_ADDRESS[0]=0x001083FB2A54
HP_PCI100_SPEED[0]=100FD
#HP_PCI100_DUPLEX[0]=

###########################################################################
# The HP_PCI100_INIT_ARGS are reserved by HP. They are NOT user changable.

#HP_PCI100_INIT_ARGS="HP_PCI100_STATION_ADDRESS HP_PCI100_DUPLEX"
HP_PCI100_INIT_ARGS="HP_PCI100_STATION_ADDRESS HP_PCI100_SPEED"


Just in case, I issued a;

lanadmin -X 100FD 5 command to again set the card to 100mps, full duplex.

The problem is, the switch the workstation is set for auto-negotiation. No negotiation with the workstation's interface hcan be arbitrated, so the switch is reporting the interface speed as 100mps, HALF DUPLEX. Setting the switch's port to FULL DUPLEX doesn't work. I've had the ports changed...same problem. Other servers running the same card, to the same switch report 100mps FD correctly.

Any thoughts on how the workstations card can correctly negotiate 100mps FD with the switch?

[Magdi KAMAL]

Hi,

Your MTU size 1500 is for 10BaseT, but your configuration is 100FD ( 100BaseT Full Duplex ) So your MTU size should be 4352.

Magdi

[Magdi KAMAL]

Hi again Brendan,

the command to set the new MTU size is :

lanadmin -M 4352

ppa : Is the physical point of attachement. You can get it by doing lanscan ( 0,1 or 2 ...)

Magdi

[Brendan Newport]

Magdi,

Before I go and try out the suggestion (thanks so far) I noticed that at least one other server at the customers remote location (which is why I'm hesitant) has a 100Base/T card running, apparently fine, with;

Network Management ID = 5
Description = lan1 Hewlett-Packard 10/100 TX Full-Duplex Hw Rev 0. TT = 1500
Type (value) = ethernet-csmacd(6)
MTU Size = 1500
Speed = 100
Station Address = 0x1083fb2a1d

But I also have another server at the same location with a 100mps half-duplex interface, with the following;

Network Management ID = 4
Description = lan0 Hewlett-Packard 10/100 TX Half-Duplex Hw Rev 0. TT = 1500
Type (value) = ethernet-csmacd(6)
MTU Size = 1500
Speed = 10
Station Address = 0x60b0f9a970

So I'm slightly hesitant, but if the MTU is definately wrong, I'll give it a whirl.

[Brendan Newport]

As it was, my attempt to change the interface MTU didn't take;

root@hazapp$ lanadmin -M 4352 5
Old MTU Size = 1500
Unable to change MTU size: errno = 22

and with the -R flag;

root@hazapp$ lanadmin -R 5
Old MTU Size = 1500
Unable to change MTU size: errno = 22

[Sachin Patel]

Hi Brendan,
I run lanadmin on our c180 system looks like speed is the problem
Network Management ID = 4
Description = lan0 Hewlett-Packard LAN Interface Hw Rev 0
Type (value) = ethernet-csmacd(6)
MTU Size = 1500
Speed = 10000000
Station Address = 0x80009cda86b

#lanadmin -S 10000000 4

Sachin

[Brian Hackley · Accepted solution]

Brendon,

The suggestions to modify the MTU and to use lanadmin -S to change the speed should be avoided since neither applies to HP 100BaseT cards.

Use this website for procedures to follow and technical tips: http://techsolutions.hp.com/fe/diagnostic.html

The startup file information you pasted in the call indicates that the C180 add-on PCI single port card is what is being used. You should verify that indeed that is the connection and lan card in question. For example, ioscan -fClan, compare that to lanscan -v ...

Please ensure you're on recent 100BaseT patch/revision levels for the driver type in use since they improve the negotiation and lanadmin reporting features considerably.
11.0 builtin btlan3 - PHNE_22244
11.0 add-on PCI btlan5 - PHNE_24006

Hope all this helps,

-> Brian Hackley

[rick jones]

definitely make sure that the duplex settings on the NIC match with those on the card. i am never a fan of hard-codeing duplex settings, but some folks have problems with autoneg and thus they hardcode. however, if one side thinks the connection is half-duplex and the other thinks full, performance will be terrible.

the stats on the half-duplex side will show late collisions, and lots of other errors, and you might see them on the full-duplex side too. (lanadmin)

[Brendan Newport]

Think I'm neally there. Thanks to all for the assistance. The http://techsolutions.hp.com/fe/diagnostic.html site is particularly useful.

The system is still at 10.20, with 47-odd users (concurrent) so it's a busy workstation!

I installed PHNE_20892 last night, which allowed me to change the card settings (including in Sam.) However the workstation might still need a power-down and startup to ensure auto-negotiation works.

I rekon I've got enough detail now to get a solution.