NIC Performance

[Pete Kelly]

Hi, I've got an N-4000 running HP-UX 11.0
Are there any performance implications of changing from HP PCI 10/100Base-TX Core (using btlan3 driver) to HP A5230A/B5509BA PCI 10/100Base-TX Addon (using btlan5 driver)

I've been experiencing source quench messages and have just disabled the parameter with ndd.

Thanks in advance

[Todd Whitcher]

Hello Pete,

You should make sure you have the latest driver for the add on btlan5 PCI card. There are some known card hangs with that driver.

The latest patch is PHNE_25580.

The source quench can be disabled w/ out any side affects, but it may not be related to your issues. Check the lanadmin statistics for that card and the netstat -s statistics.

If you want detailed information about the fields in netsetat check out ftp site listed in this post:

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x393f63f96280d711abdc0090277a778c,00.html

Hope this helps,

Todd

[Pete Kelly]

Hi Todd,
Thanks for the update. My main concern is whether the Addon card will be quicker than the PCI Core card. Or will the performance be the same?

[Steven E. Protter]

I don't think you are going to notice any massive performance bump. I have a similar setup on L class boxes, and ran large file transfers through our add in and then the built in.

The time difference was hardly noticeable, but the add in cards were a little quicker.

With current patching and good drivers, 100 BaseT is 100 BaseT.

Several factors contributed to fuzziness. The add in card was on a faster Cisco backbone, but shared band width with about 30 other servers. The built in card was on a Cisco 2900 switch sharing band width only with two other HP-UX servers.

Fair test. Don't know.

I would not expect dramatic improvement. For dramatic improvement, I'm purchasing 1000 BaseT cards.

SEP

[Ravi_8]

Hi,

There wouldn't be no improvement in performance(speed) as both the cards are 10/100 base.

installing QPK patch bundle(from support plus media) may avoid the error you are getting (source quench)

[rick jones]

Both the core (btlan3) and add-on (btlan5) NIC's use Digital 2114X 100BT chipsets. Their performance should be virtually identical. The only chance for performance differences would be from the add-on card being in a more/less capable PCI bus and perhaps not having to share any PCI bandwidth with other devices.

Also, when you upgrade to 11i (11.11 - we all are going to do that soon right?-) FCS of 11.0 was 1997...) you will find that btlan3 and btlan5 (along with btlan6 and btlan4) have all been merged into one "btlan" driver.