Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!pprg.unm.edu!cyrus
From: cyrus@pprg.unm.edu (Tait Cyrus)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: lanbridge retardation
Message-ID: <23782@pprg.unm.edu>
Date: 17 Mar 89 02:05:19 GMT
References: <1151@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
Reply-To: cyrus@pprg.unm.edu (Tait Cyrus)
Organization: U. of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Lines: 47

In article <1151@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> gdl@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Glen Lovell) writes:
 >Looking for help... Here at Hopkins we have 26 lanbridge 100's.  Lately
 >we have seen occurences where all of them acquire a bogus forwarding
 >entry for the multicast address FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF to an invalid destination.
 >
 >Doing a remove known bridges address FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF with RBMS clears 
 >the problem for a day or two, sometimes longer.  I seem to recall some 
 >discussion of this in this newsgroup eons ago.  I have looked for an
 >offensive packet without success and my gut-level feeling is that is
 >a Lanbridge problem (possibly eco or firmware).  Anyone have anything
 >of help?
 >
 >G. Lovell Network engr. 

Causes:

1) Do you have any IBM PCs running UNIX 4.3 (not AIX)?   We had one
   running 4.3, and EVERYTIME it booted, whether from a shutdown, a
   power off, or whatever, it sent out a garbage packet.  Most of the
   time, fortunately, the garbage in the source address was not all F's,
   though on occasion there WERE all F's and our out of Rev Lanbridges
   died.  Other people I have talked to have said they have seen their
   Lanbridges die without the presence of IBM PCs, so I am guessing other
   machines are doing this as well.

2) We have had problems with Rev E & F's.  The #'s off the 2 PROMS that
   we saw in "BAD" bridges are:

   REV F:
		LM8916 332 E5 Dec 88
		LM8916 333 E5 Dec 88

   REV E-08:
		LM8750 293 E5 Dec 87
		SP8807 294 E5 Dec 87

   The REV F's we got are early in the REV F series.  Later REV F's might
   be fixed.  All REV E's we saw were bad.  We assume that Proms with
   #'s from 293->333 are going to be bad.

Hope this somewhat answers your questions.

---
W. Tait Cyrus   (505) 277-0806		e-mail: cyrus@pprg.unm.edu
University of New Mexico			
Dept of ECE - Parallel Processing Research Group
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131