Conference wrksys::mikasa

852.0. "slow boot with DW300" by AUBER::DORNANO () Fri Feb 28 1997 09:56

Hello

I read this conference, and particularly note 390 as it resemble
my problem, but I'm still confused, so I cross-post the following
topic from Digital_Unix.


Help appreciated


-------------------------------------


    Alpha 1000A/5/333 PAL code V1.21. Firmware Revision 4.7

    Conrad Thomas PB-XNP-AA Token Ring board :


    tra0: TMS380 PCI Token Ring interface
    tra0: TMS380 Microcode type CAF, _Silicon Revision 4.2,
          Microcode level 2.28


    Customer says that the machine is very very slow and long to boot if
    the board is connected to a 4Mbps Ring.

    In this case messages such as : Waiting for DW to start
                              and : Open adapter failed
   are seen.


    If the ring is 16Mbps, there is no problem at all.

    Is it possible to set the board at 4Mbps at the console prompt ?


PdO


--------------------------------------


    
    A couple of things could be going wrong here, but essentially some
    protocol is starting the interface at the wrong speed.  And yes, this
    will not only slow things down on your host machine, but it will
    totally trash the ring.
    
    LAT typically wants to start on all devices.  If you don't need LAT,
    get rid of it.  There are other protocols too, but you're going to have
    to track down what party is responsible for starting the interface at
    the wrong speed.



-------------------------------------


    
Hi,

Are you setting the correct speed in /etc/rc.config when you change ring
speed?  There is a speed argument on the IFCONFIG_X line for Token Ring:

NETDEV_2="tra0"
IFCONFIG_2="16.141.144.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 speed 16"

... and you must set any bridges accordingly
... and you must set any other nodes too
...

-Brian
[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]


------------------------------------



Well, thank you for your input, although I missed to tell that the "hang"
of the boot happens at the very beginning (long before LAT or anything else
start).

It hangs even before the loading of vmunix..

Could it be a problem with the board or with the firmware revs in this case ?


Pascal



--------------------------------------


    
    Check with the platform notesconferences to see if anyone knows how to 
    keep the console from using the Token Ring device as a possible boot
    device.  There has to be some sort of environment variable to set
    this... 
    
    Perhaps look at the environment variables in the console, and see if
    anything jumps out at you...
    
    	>>> show dwa*
    
    

Unfortunately there is no console environment variable at this time to set/
change the setting from 16Mbps to 4Mbps. On this platform, the console
start/restarts drivers on a powerup/reboot. For this device the console setting
is fixed 16Mbps.

There is the possibility of adding a console environment variable to change
settings in a future release of the console. 

Is it possible to create a shell script to have the Digital Unix device driver
set the device to 4Mbps when Digital Unix is started/restarted?