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Conference 7.286::fddi

Title:FDDI - The Next Generation
Moderator:NETCAD::STEFANI
Created:Thu Apr 27 1989
Last Modified:Thu Jun 05 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:2259
Total number of notes:8590

1943.0. "Novell V4.1 & Defpa slow performance" by KERNEL::GRIFFITHSJ () Mon Feb 05 1996 15:07

    Hello
    
    I hope someone can point me in the right direction with this one as I
    am not a novell expert.
    I have a customer complaining of very poor throughput using Defpa's
    in a Novell V4.1 environment. He was testing throughput using Perform3
    V1.62 which I believe is a Novell package and getting an aggregate 
    (reads and writes to a network drive) throughput of about 3500 kbps.
    We have tried to reproduce the problem and appear to get very poor
    performance on copying large packets although login and dir's are very
    quick.
    We have tried connecting the two machines connected via a 900TH
    concentrator and back to back and get the same results.
    Defpa client driver is V1.63
    Defpa Server driver is V2.26
    Novell V4.1 with the 410IT5.exe patch installed
    Max physical recieve packet buffers is set to 4500
    The client is a Compaq Prolinea 5133 with 16 MB memory
    Server is Celebris 590 14 MB
    Frame type on both server and client is fddi_802.2 and 802.2
    All the other parameters on the server will be at default values
    
    If we try copying say a 15MB file to a network drive and look at the
    monitor display for the bytes sent on the network it increaes very
    slowly 100 bytes or so at a time. CPU utilization during the copy is
    very low < 2%. 
    Customer says his machines performed well on 100BASET cards.
    Is this a Novell tuning problem or something in the drivers??
    
    
    thanks Jim
    CSC Basingstoke
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1943.1Shut off packet burstNETCAD::THOMPSONTue Feb 06 1996 11:2025
    
    Hi,
    
    We have seen other cases of performance problems with the 
    Compaq Prolinea and haven't been able to determine the cause
    just yet.  It does seem odd however, that the performance 
    problems I've heard about are unique to that system.
    
    What file sizes is he using when running perform3?
    
    Make sure that the client systems are not sharing interrupts.
    What other PCI add-in cards are in the client?
    
    Also, if he's using default settings on the client, try
    changing his net.cfg file to include PB BUFFERS = 0 under
    the NETWARE DOS REQUESTER heading.  Let us know if this 
    makes any difference.
    
    We are in the process of certifying new server and client drivers
    for the DEFPA, so we could have your customer try these new drivers
    if the problem doesn't go away.
    
    
    -Brenda
    
1943.2much improved with PB buffers = 0KERNEL::GRIFFITHSJTue Feb 06 1996 13:2415
    Hi Brenda
    
    
    Thanks for the response. Setting PB Buffers = 0 in the client Net.cfg
    improved things dramatically. The 15MB file now copies from client to
    server in about 30 secs whereas before I stopped in after 5-10 minutes and
    it had only copied 3MB.
    The perform3 setting were default which started with a file size of
    4096 and decreased gradually. Aggregate throughput was 2000 kbps.
    The Defpa is the only PCI card in the Compaq. I will try using DEC PC
    as the client tomorrow and compare results. I have told the customer to
    try turning off packet burst and he will let me know.
    I'll post the results.
    
    thanks Jim
1943.3New DriverNETCAD::TREMBLAYThu Mar 21 1996 16:186
    A similar case (maybe the same one) was worked on IPMT # CFS.37880. The
    solution was a new driver, released in:
    
    
    		FEKIT252.ZIP
                DEFPA.COM V2.08