[Soekris] Ethernet issues

[Christopher E. Brown]

On Fri, 2 May 2003, Code:NET wrote:

>
> 	Hearing what you said, I went back out there and tried it (wasted an
> afternoon).  I have a 100 megabit switch and a 10 megabit switch.  I plug
> everything into the 100 megabit switch and everything works fine, all but a
> little slow.  I plug in the 10 megabit switch and it works off and on, and
> randomly the activity light just stays solid on on both the switch and the
> soekris and no data is passed.  It happens frequently enough that I wouldn't
> leave it for 5 minutes, let alone try to hang customers off of it.  If I do a
> cross over cable between any ten megabit device and the soekris, I'm lucky to
> get 30 seconds before the ethernet on the soekris locks.  I even tired
> putting 150 feet of cable between the soekris and the 10 megabit switch
> thinking that the cable length might be the issue.   I spent 2 1/2 hours out
> there screwing with crap.
>
> 	I acknowledge that this may be a software issue, but I wouldn't bet on it.
> When I pull this unit out of production we'll test it then.
>
> 	I wouldn't place any faith in any ten megabit communications through a
> soekris. Not to knock them too hard, for wireless applications to 100 megabit
> devices they are very impressive.  And for wireless uplink to wireless ap
> they are great, but the limitations must be realized.  If what your saying is
> that I have a fluke, or a defective board, we are pulling it out of
> production and I'll inspect/RMA it then.
>
> 	Daniel Baughman


I have to say, out of the pile of 4501 and 4521 gear I have worked
with, I have never had a problem.  And all have been used in mixed
10/100 environs, on switched, unswitched, crossovers, and via PairGain
bridges.  There is one minor issue with cable lengths, due to a bug in
signal strength EQ in the DP ethernet chip, but this is taken care of
by any current driver.  You might was to check if star os has the DP
short cable fix in the driver.

 --
I route, therefore you are.