Speedo Driver

QNX Newsgroups (Archives) qdn.public.qnxrtp.os
1

I have a couple of questions:

1 - is there a major (minor) problem with the speedo drivers? If so what
ethernet board can I use that works very reliably?

2 - I have a system that hangs periodically - nothing to do but reset it. I
suspect that the problem is due to networking problems (is worse when the
network has more traffic). When it hangs everything is locked - console,
telnet … There is no core dump created…

Someone suggested having a process beep the speaker to see if anything is
going. Does anyone have some code to access the PC speaker? Just very basic
control is all I am looking for.

Thanks

Mike

2

“Michael Nunan” <m.nunan@ieee.ca> wrote in message
news:afvnp8$d84$1@inn.qnx.com…

I have a couple of questions:

1 - is there a major (minor) problem with the speedo drivers? If so what
ethernet board can I use that works very reliably?

guessing that you are using QNX RTP 6.1…

from what I have seen and heard, there is major problems with the speedo
driver. Personally I have seen lots of auto negotation problems (using half
duplex, when full is available, restart io-net a few times, and you can get
full duplex), lots of speed issues (heavy outgoing load causes high CPU
usage, and very poor network performance). That was all on an 82557 based
card. switching to the more recent driver available at developers.qnx.com
seemed to help a bit.

the weirdest thing was when I tried using a 82550 based NIC (according to
Intel they are software compatible with the 82557/8/9), QNX’s driver would
assign the same MAC address no matter what NIC I used, I had 3 machines with
82550 NICs, and they couldn’t talk to each other…til I noticed they all
had the same MAC addresses!

anyway, supposedly a lot of the problems were fixed in 6.2.

I have used 3 COM cards (905b or 905c) quite a bit, and it works
great…probably anything else will be fine, just avoid the intel cards, or
upgrade to 6.2.

2 - I have a system that hangs periodically - nothing to do but reset it.
I
suspect that the problem is due to networking problems (is worse when the
network has more traffic). When it hangs everything is locked - console,
telnet … There is no core dump created…

Someone suggested having a process beep the speaker to see if anything is
going. Does anyone have some code to access the PC speaker? Just very
basic
control is all I am looking for.

this oughta work to beep the speaker every 5 seconds, run this at a high
priority, and should be able to see if the machine is still OK…but if you
have lost all control over it (no console, telnet, etc) then you have all
you have is a rather large beeping box…
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int main (void) {

while (1) {

/* beep the PC speaker */
printf ("\a");

/* wait 5 seconds before we beep again */
sleep (5);
}
}

(in case you haven’t compiled C code before…copy that into a text file, and
run this
qcc -Wall -o beep beep.c
then run it like this
…/beep &
hope that helps)


JIm

Thanks

Mike

3

Hi Michael…

Michael Nunan wrote:

I have a couple of questions:

1 - is there a major (minor) problem with the speedo drivers? If so what
ethernet board can I use that works very reliably?

Some users seem not to have problems with the speedo driver, whence
opinions may vary. Now, having said that, I have always experienced
problems with speedo in both rtp6.1A and rtp6.2-PE-beta4 (now defunct)
and rtp6.2-NC. Problems mostly have to do with duplex issues and very
poor performance, to the point of being useless. I have never been able
to reproduce the problems in a predictable way, that is, problems come
and go at random. Very frustrating, and extremely difficult to debug
because the system freezes completely most of the time. Go figure.


2 - I have a system that hangs periodically - nothing to do but reset it. I
suspect that the problem is due to networking problems (is worse when the
network has more traffic). When it hangs everything is locked - console,
telnet … There is no core dump created…

I have had this same experience too. None of the suggestions offered by
QSSL and others has helped; the driver is simply not there yet. I am
still exchanging posts with some information to QSSL and other users on
some topics relating to speedo. Stay tuned.

Another driver with problems in both rtp6.1A and rtp6.2-NC is pcnet. So
stay away from that driver as well.


Someone suggested having a process beep the speaker to see if anything is
going. Does anyone have some code to access the PC speaker? Just very basic
control is all I am looking for.

We have an DIO board that puts out a pulse from within somewhere in the
code. Connect and oscilloscope, and you got it…

I am sure that things will improve, it is just a matter of time…

Regards…

Miguel.


Thanks

Mike

4

“Miguel Simon” <simon@ou.edu> wrote in message
news:3D23FDE0.2000000@ou.edu…

Hi Michael…

Michael Nunan wrote:

I have a couple of questions:

1 - is there a major (minor) problem with the speedo drivers? If so what
ethernet board can I use that works very reliably?


Some users seem not to have problems with the speedo driver, whence
opinions may vary. Now, having said that, I have always experienced
problems with speedo in both rtp6.1A and rtp6.2-PE-beta4 (now defunct)
and rtp6.2-NC. Problems mostly have to do with duplex issues and very
poor performance, to the point of being useless. I have never been able
to reproduce the problems in a predictable way, that is, problems come
and go at random. Very frustrating, and extremely difficult to debug
because the system freezes completely most of the time. Go figure.



2 - I have a system that hangs periodically - nothing to do but reset
it. I
suspect that the problem is due to networking problems (is worse when
the
network has more traffic). When it hangs everything is locked - console,
telnet … There is no core dump created…


I have had this same experience too. None of the suggestions offered by
QSSL and others has helped; the driver is simply not there yet. I am
still exchanging posts with some information to QSSL and other users on
some topics relating to speedo. Stay tuned.

Another driver with problems in both rtp6.1A and rtp6.2-NC is pcnet. So
stay away from that driver as well.

So does via-rhine. It gets duplex mode wrong at startup.

Thanks

Mike
\

5

You better fflush(stdout) after each printf() if you want that code to do
what you expect!

dB

#include <stdio.h
#include <unistd.h

int main (void) {

while (1) {

/* beep the PC speaker */
printf ("\a");

/* wait 5 seconds before we beep again */
sleep (5);
}
}

(in case you haven’t compiled C code before…copy that into a text file,
and
run this
qcc -Wall -o beep beep.c
then run it like this
./beep &
hope that helps)


JIm
Thanks

Mike
\

6

I have tried using the printf("\a"); - It stops as soon as the rest of the
system does - I was wondering if some process that accesses the speaker
directly (without using whatever is involved in the printf version would
have any better luck? - You are right though - I will at best end up with a
beeping box if I cannot find a way to wrest control back…

Mike

“David Bacon” <dbacon@qnx.com> wrote in message
news:ag1lt4$qv2$1@inn.qnx.com…

You better fflush(stdout) after each printf() if you want that code to do
what you expect!

dB

#include <stdio.h
#include <unistd.h

int main (void) {

while (1) {

/* beep the PC speaker */
printf ("\a");

/* wait 5 seconds before we beep again */
sleep (5);
}
}

(in case you haven’t compiled C code before…copy that into a text file,
and
run this
qcc -Wall -o beep beep.c
then run it like this
./beep &
hope that helps)


JIm
Thanks

Mike


\

7

Are you using the 6.1 or 6.2 driver?

Michael Nunan <m.nunan@ieee.ca> wrote:

I have a couple of questions:

1 - is there a major (minor) problem with the speedo drivers? If so what
ethernet board can I use that works very reliably?

2 - I have a system that hangs periodically - nothing to do but reset it. I
suspect that the problem is due to networking problems (is worse when the
network has more traffic). When it hangs everything is locked - console,
telnet … There is no core dump created…

Someone suggested having a process beep the speaker to see if anything is
going. Does anyone have some code to access the PC speaker? Just very basic
control is all I am looking for.

Thanks

Mike

–
Kirk Russell Bridlewood Software Testers Guild