Dell 1600SC + 82540EM poor performance..HELP NEEDED

[Matthew_Wygant at dell.com]

Desktop or server quality, I do not know, but the 1600sc does have the 82540
chip, dmseg should show that much.  It is on a 33MHz bus and does rate as a
10/100/1000 nic.  I was curious which driver you were using, e1000 or
eepro1000?  The latter has known slow transfer problems, but just as
mentioned, hard-setting all network devices should yield the best
performance.  Hope that helps.  1600sc servers are not the best for clusters
with their size and power consumption, but I would recommend the 650 or
1650s.

-matt

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephane.Martin at imag.fr [mailto:Stephane.Martin at imag.fr] 
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 4:52 PM
To: Jim Phillips
Cc: boewulf
Subject: Re: Dell 1600SC + 82540EM poor performance..HELP NEEDED


Jim Phillips a écrit :
> 
> Hi,
> 
> The 82540EM is a low-cost 32-bit "desktop" NIC, so it's hard to get 
> full gigabit bandwidth, particularly if you're running at 33 MHz (look 
> at /proc/net/PRO_LAN_Adapters/eth0/PCI_Bus_Speed to find out).  There 
> are no 82540EM-based PCI-X cards, AFAIK; are you sure it wasn't a 
> 64-bit 82545EM card?  Intel distinguishes their 32-bit 33/66 MHz PCI 
> PRO/1000 MT Desktop cards that use 82540EM from their 64-bit PCI-X 
> PRO/1000 MT Server cards that use the 82545EM (and have full gigabit 
> performance).
> 
> -Jim
> 
> On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 Stephane.Martin at imag.fr wrote:
> 
> > > > Hello,
> > > >
> > > > We have recently received 48 Bi-xeon Dell 1600SC and we are 
> > > > performing some benchmarks to tests the cluster. Unfortunately 
> > > > we have very bad perfomance with the internal gigabit card 
> > > > (82540EM chipset). We have passed linux netperf test and we have 
> > > > only 33 Mo
> > > >
> > > > between 2 machines. We have changed the drivers for the last 
> > > > ones, installed procfgd and so on... Finally we had Win2000 
> > > > installed and the last driver
> > > >
> > > > from intel installed : the results are identical... To go 
> > > > further we have installed a PCI-X 82540EM card and re-run the 
> > > > tests : in that way the
> > > >
> > > > results are much better : 66 Mo full duplex...
> > > > So the question is : is there a well known problem with this 
> > > > DELL 1600SC concernig the 82540EM integration on the motherboard 
> > > > ????
> > > >
> > > > As anyone already have (heard about) this problem ?
> > > > Is there any solution ?
> > > >
> > > > thx for your help
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Dr. Jeff Layton
> > > Chart Monkey - Aerodynamics and CFD
> > > Lockheed-Martin Aeronautical Company - Marietta
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > For our tests we are connected to a 4108GL (J4865A), we have done 
> > all necessary checks (maybe we've have forget something very very 
> > big ????) to ensure the validity of our mesures. The ports have been 
> > tested with auto neg on, then off and also forced. We have also the 
> > same mesures when connected to a J4898A. The negociation between the 
> > NIcs ans the two switches is working.
> >
> > When using a tyan motherboard with the 82540EM built-in and using 
> > the same benchs and switches ans the same procedures (drivers 
> > updates and compilations from Intel, various benchs, different OS) 
> > the results are correct (80 to 90Mo).
> >
> > All our tests tends to show that dell missed something in the 
> > integration of the 82540EM in the 1600SC series...if not we'll 
> > really really appreciate to know what we are missing there cause 
> > here we have a 150 000 dollars cluster said to be connected with a 
> > network gigabit having network perfs of three 100 card bonded (in 
> > full duplex it's even worse !!!!!). If the problem is not rapidly 
> > solved the 48 machines will be returned....
> >
> > thx a lot for your concern,
> >
> > regards
> >
> >
> > --
> > Stephane Martin         Stephane.Martin at imag.fr
> > http://icluster.imag.fr
> > Tel: 04 76 61 20 31
> > Informatique et distribution Web:  http://www-id.imag.fr ENSIMAG - 
> > Antenne de Montbonnot ZIRST - 51, avenue Jean Kuntzmann
> > 38330 MONTBONNOT SAINT MARTIN
> > _______________________________________________
> > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org
> > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit
http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
> >

I'm going to re re re re check it...

thx a lot for your concern !

-- 
Stephane Martin         Stephane.Martin at imag.fr
http://icluster.imag.fr 
Tel: 04 76 61 20 31   
Informatique et distribution Web:  http://www-id.imag.fr ENSIMAG - Antenne
de Montbonnot 
ZIRST - 51, avenue Jean Kuntzmann
38330 MONTBONNOT SAINT MARTIN
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