1.4.378 POTENTIAL UNDETECTED DATA MODIFICATION ON 9585

Record number: H12989

Device: D/T9585
Model: M
Tip key:
Date created: O93/08/23
Date last altered: A94/08/15

SYMPTOM:
WHEN AN IBM SERVER 85 IS CONFIGURED WITH A DATA STREAMING
ADAPTER, AND THE ADAPTER'S DATA STREAMING MODE IS IN USE,
DATA LOSS OR DATA MODIFICATION MAY RESULT WITH NO ERROR
MESSAGE TO THE USER.

TESTING HAS SHOWN THIS EXPOSURE EXISTS WHEN A LANSTREAMER
MC 32 ADAPTER OR ETHERSTREAMER MC 32 ADAPTER IS INSTALLED
IN THE 9585.

PROBLEM ISOLATION AIDS:
- IBM LANSTREAMER MC 32 ADAPTER:
FRU P/N92F8941, OPTION 92F8942, FEATURE CODE 8942 OR 1100
- IBM ETHERSTREAMER MC 32 ADAPTER:
FRU P/N59G9081, OPTION 59G9066, FEATURE CODE 9066 OR 3310

FIX:
A CIRCUMVENTION IS TO TURN OFF THE LAN STREAMER OR
ETHERSTREAMER ADAPTER'S DATA STREAMING FUNCTION USING
"CHANGE CONFIGURATION." IF A DATA STREAMING ADAPTER IS
NOT INSTALLED IN THE SERVER 85, NO ACTION IS REQUIRED.

A PERMANENT SOLUTION IS BEING INVESTIGATED. THIS TIP WILL
BE UPDATED AS NEW INFORMATION DEVELOPS.

IBM IS TAKING IMMEDIATE ACTION TO NOTIFY POTENTIALLY
AFFECTED CUSTOMERS OF THIS SITUATION.
2/08/94 UPDATE:
Corrected Lan Streamer adapters are now shipping and the rollout
of adapters will continue over the next 90 days. There are new
part numbers and FRU numbers associated with these adapters
Any adapter with the old FRU number needs to be replaced.

To register the adapters for replacement, call 1-800-426-2269
from 9: 00 AM to 8: 00 PM EST. These adapters will be replaced
free of charge. Following is a list of associated part numbers
and FRU numbers.

ADAPTER NAME OLD PART# NEW PART# OLD FRU# NEW FRU#

LANStreamer 32 92F8942 74G0103 P/N92F8941 P/N74G0098
LANStreamer 16 59G8998 74G0801 P/N58G8999 P/N74G0800
EtherStreamer 59G9066 74G0850 P/N59G9081 P/N74G0865

Additional information for this problem is also contained in
RETAIN Record H122376.

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EtherStreamer MC 32
https://www.ardent-tool.com/NIC/ES32.html

Flash microcode disk for EtherStreamer MC 32 https://www.ardent-tool.com/NIC/Strflash.exe

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https://www.ardent-tool.com/adapters/adf/@8fa8.adf

NamedItem Prompt "Streaming Data Select"
Choice "Enabled" POS[3]=xx1xxxxxb
Choice "Disabled" POS[3]=xx0xxxxxb

Help "This Ethernet Network Adapter can operate
with or without Data Streaming. For best
performance, select <Enabled>."

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From looking at the unloved Etherstreamer MC32 page, it's sordid
lackluster. I did not comment out the ADF sections and choices. My bad.

Also, I have never delved into the UCode versions for the Streamer
family, my assumption is the last one is the best.

I need to grok the ADF, I saw things that could really conflict if you
let the system do an autoconfig. At times, either the hardware or the
ADF, or SC.EXE fails to properly configure the adapter, and as a
consequence, it bollixes up the configuration.

"All models of the following machines are supported by the IBM
EtherStreamer MC 32 Adapter:
o The 8550, 8555, 8556, 8557, 8560, 8570, 8573, 8580, 8590, 8595,
8600, 9556, 9557, 9576, 9577, 9585, and 9595 PS/2 system units."

One RETAIN tip says your FRU is to replace a downlevel adapter, another
says it should be replaced, another says a workaround is to disable
streaming.

I have cut the ADF, and will make it [sl]easier to understand. It will
be posted to this NG when it's "dun", these edits are tedious, but not difficult...

Louis Ohland wrote:

EtherStreamer MC 32
https://www.ardent-tool.com/NIC/ES32.html

Flash microcode disk for EtherStreamer MC 32 https://www.ardent-tool.com/NIC/Strflash.exe

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"Send" is not "Save"...

The 8573-P70 is an earlier system, and some things were not fully beaten
out. There are other adapters where the auto configuration gets things
wrong.

Manually set the Adapter Media Type [should not be the problem...]
Disable Streaming Data Select [P70 is not famous for Data Streaming]
Parity Enable/Monitor Feedback set to OFF / OFF [Parity/Monitor Feedback
is a later development]

Your DBA-ESDI drive is using DMA 5, set the ES 32 to ANOTHER DMA
channel. A blank screen after the HD spins up hints at a conflict.

Don't configure ES 32 things to 0C0000H and 0E0000H

You will notice that I leave the I/O ranges and other human readable
things in the ADF sections [where needed] so people can SEE the ranges
[or values] used.

; Version: 1.00

AdapterId 08FA8h "IBM EtherStreamer MC32 Adapter"

NumBytes 4
FixedResources
POS[0]=1xxxxxxxb
POS[2]=x1xx0xx1b
Begin NoDMA

"Adapter Media Type Selection" Select which cable type connects the NIC
to the network. Autosense [adapter selects], Attachment Unit Interface
(AUI), Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP or 10BASE T), or Coax (10BASE2).
<Autosense>, UTP, COAX, AUI

"System Interrupt Level" Interrupt level used to interrupt the system
unit. The preferred interrupt level is 3, but the adapter can operate
on any of the four levels if necessary.
<Interrupt 3 [Int 03h]>, 2 [Int 02h], 10 [Int 0Ah], 11 [Int 0Bh]

"Micro Channel I/O Address" The micro channel I/O address range of the
adapter. For micro channel I/O cycles, this Ethernet Network adapter is selected when the micro channel I/O address is within a 256 byte region.
If more than one ES 32 is used in your computer, each adapter must be
assigned a separate I/O address range.
<1C00-1CFF IO 01C00h-01CFFh>, 2000-20FF[02000-020FF], 2400-24FF [02400-024FF], 2800-28FF [02800-028FF], 2C00-2CFF [02C00-02CFF],
3000-30FF [03000-030FF], 3400-34FF [03400-034FF], 3800-38FF
[03800-038FF], 3C00-3CFF [03C00-03CFF], 4000-40FF [04000-040FF],
4400-44FF [04400-044FF], 4800-48FF [04800-048FF], 4C00-4CFF
[04C00-04CFF], 5000-50FF [05000-050FF], 5400-54FF [05400-054FF],
5800-58FF [05800-058FF], 5C00-5CFF [05C00-05CFF], 6000-60FF
[06000-060FF], 6400-64FF [06400-064FF], 6800-68FF [06800-068FF],
6C00-6CFF [06C00-06CFF], 7000-70FF [07000-070FF], 7400-74FF
[07400-074FF], 7800-78FF [07800-078FF], 7C00-7CFF [07C00-07CFF],
8000-80FF [08000-080FF], 8400-84FF [08400-084FF], 8800-88FF
[08800-088FF], 8C00-8CFF [08C00-08CFF], 9000-90FF [09000-090FF],
9400-94FF [09400-094FF], 9800-98FF [09800-098FF], 9C00-9CFF
[09C00-09CFF], A000-A0FF [0A000-0A0FF], A400-A4FF [0A400-0A4FF],
A800-A8FF [0A800-0A8FF], AC00-ACFF [0AC00-0ACFF], FC00-FCFF [0FC00-0FCFF]

"Streaming Data Select" The ES 32 can operate with or without Data
Streaming. For best performance, select <Enabled>.
<Enabled>, Disabled

"Fairness" Whether the adapter will share the bus equitably with other
devices or retain control of the bus as needed. Default is <ON>.
<Fairness ON>, Fairness OFF

"Arbitration Level" The ES 32 can operate on one of thirteen arbitration levels: 1, 2, 3 or 5 thru E. If more than one ES 32 is used in your
computer, each adapter must be assigned a separate arbitration level.
<Level 1 [arb 01]>, 2, 3, 4 [Commented Out], 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B,
C, D, E

"Parity Enable/Monitor Feedback" The ES 32 can generate and check data
and address parity. The ES 32 also provides the capability of monitoring
slave device's Selected Feedback Return Exception signals during DMA operations.
<Parity OFF/Monitor OFF>, Parity ON /Monitor OFF, Parity
OFF/Monitor ON, Parity ON /Monitor ON

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; Version: 1.00

AdapterId 08FA8h "IBM EtherStreamer MC32 Adapter"

NumBytes 4
FixedResources
POS[0]=1xxxxxxxb
POS[2]=x1xx0xx1b
Begin NoDMA

"Adapter Media Type Selection" Select which cable type connects the NIC
to the network. Autosense [adapter selects], Attachment Unit Interface
(AUI), Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP or 10BASE T), or Coax (10BASE2).
<Autosense>, UTP, COAX, AUI

"System Interrupt Level" Interrupt level used to interrupt the system
unit. The preferred interrupt level is 3, but the adapter can operate
on any of the four levels if necessary.
<Interrupt 3 [Int 03h]>, 2 [Int 02h], 10 [Int 0Ah], 11 [Int 0Bh]

"Micro Channel I/O Address"
Choice "1C00-1CFF" POS[0]=x000111xb IO 01C00h-01CFFh
Choice "2000-20FF" POS[0]=x001000xb IO 02000h-020FFh
Choice "2400-24FF" POS[0]=x001001xb IO 02400h-024FFh
Choice "2800-28FF" POS[0]=x001010xb IO 02800h-028FFh
Choice "2C00-2CFF" POS[0]=x001011xb IO 02C00h-02CFFh
Choice "3000-30FF" POS[0]=x001100xb IO 03000h-030FFh
Choice "3400-34FF" POS[0]=x001101xb IO 03400h-034FFh
Choice "3800-38FF" POS[0]=x001110xb IO 03800h-038FFh
Choice "3C00-3CFF" POS[0]=x001111xb IO 03C00h-03CFFh
Choice "4000-40FF" POS[0]=x010000xb IO 04000h-040FFh
Choice "4400-44FF" POS[0]=x010001xb IO 04400h-044FFh
Choice "4800-48FF" POS[0]=x010010xb IO 04800h-048FFh
Choice "4C00-4CFF" POS[0]=x010011xb IO 04C00h-04CFFh
Choice "5000-50FF" POS[0]=x010100xb IO 05000h-050FFh
Choice "5400-54FF" POS[0]=x010101xb IO 05400h-054FFh
Choice "5800-58FF" POS[0]=x010110xb IO 05800h-058FFh
Choice "5C00-5CFF" POS[0]=x010111xb IO 05C00h-05CFFh
Choice "6000-60FF" POS[0]=x011000xb IO 06000h-060FFh
Choice "6400-64FF" POS[0]=x011001xb IO 06400h-064FFh
Choice "6800-68FF" POS[0]=x011010xb IO 06800h-068FFh
Choice "6C00-6CFF" POS[0]=x011011xb IO 06C00h-06CFFh
Choice "7000-70FF" POS[0]=x011100xb IO 07000h-070FFh
Choice "7400-74FF" POS[0]=x011101xb IO 07400h-074FFh
Choice "7800-78FF" POS[0]=x011110xb IO 07800h-078FFh
Choice "7C00-7CFF" POS[0]=x011111xb IO 07C00h-07CFFh
Choice "8000-80FF" POS[0]=x100000xb IO 08000h-080FFh
Choice "8400-84FF" POS[0]=x100001xb IO 08400h-084FFh
Choice "8800-88FF" POS[0]=x100010xb IO 08800h-088FFh
Choice "8C00-8CFF" POS[0]=x100011xb IO 08C00h-08CFFh
Choice "9000-90FF" POS[0]=x100100xb IO 09000h-090FFh
Choice "9400-94FF" POS[0]=x100101xb IO 09400h-094FFh
Choice "9800-98FF" POS[0]=x100110xb IO 09800h-098FFh
Choice "9C00-9CFF" POS[0]=x100111xb IO 09C00h-09CFFh
Choice "A000-A0FF" POS[0]=x101000xb IO 0A000h-0A0FFh
Choice "A400-A4FF" POS[0]=x101001xb IO 0A400h-0A4FFh
Choice "A800-A8FF" POS[0]=x101010xb IO 0A800h-0A8FFh
Choice "AC00-ACFF" POS[0]=x101011xb IO 0AC00h-0ACFFh
Choice "FC00-FCFF" POS[0]=x111111xb IO 0FC00h-0FCFFh

HELP "This option allows you to select the micro channel I/O
address range of the adapter. For micro channel I/O
cycles, this Ethernet Network adapter is selected when the micro
channel I/O address is within a 256 byte region. If more than
one adapter is used in your computer, each adapter must be
assigned a separate I/O address range. The assignment for the
I/O address range can be changed by selecting 'CHANGE
CONFIGURATION'
and then using the F5=PREVIOUS and the F6=NEXT keys.
If an assignment has an asterisk (*) by it, it is in
conflict with another assignment and the I/O address range
must be changed. If a conflict continues to exist, you may
need to change the assignments for other options that are in
your computer to resolve the conflict."

"Streaming Data Select" The ES 32 can operate with or without Data
Streaming. For best performance, select <Enabled>.
<Enabled>, Disabled


"Fairness" Whether the adapter will share the bus equitably with other
devices or retain control of the bus as needed. Default is <ON>.
<Fairness ON>, Fairness OFF

NamedItem Prompt "Arbitration Level"
Choice "Level 1" POS[3]=xxxx0001b arb 01h
Choice "Level 2" POS[3]=xxxx0010b arb 02h
Choice "Level 3" POS[3]=xxxx0011b arb 03h
; Choice "Level 4" POS[3]=xxxx0100b arb 04h
Choice "Level 5" POS[3]=xxxx0101b arb 05h
Choice "Level 6" POS[3]=xxxx0110b arb 06h
Choice "Level 7" POS[3]=xxxx0111b arb 07h
Choice "Level 8" POS[3]=xxxx1000b arb 08h
Choice "Level 9" POS[3]=xxxx1001b arb 09h
Choice "Level A" POS[3]=xxxx1010b arb 0Ah
Choice "Level B" POS[3]=xxxx1011b arb 0Bh
Choice "Level C" POS[3]=xxxx1100b arb 0Ch
Choice "Level D" POS[3]=xxxx1101b arb 0Dh
Choice "Level E" POS[3]=xxxx1110b arb 0Eh

Help "This Ethernet Network adapter
can operate on one of thirteen arbitration levels: 1, 2, 3 or
5 thru E. If more than one adapter is used in your computer,
each adapter must be assigned a separate arbitration level.
Assignment for the arbitration level can be changed by
selecting 'CHANGE CONFIGURATION' and then using the
F5=Previous and the F6=Next keys.
If an assignment has an asterisk (*) by it, it is in
conflict with another assignment and the arbitration level
must be changed. If a conflict continues to exist, you may
need to change the assignments for other adapters or options
that are in your computer to resolve the conflict."

"Parity Enable/Monitor Feedback" The ES 32 can generate and check data
and address parity. The ES 32 also provides the capability of monitoring
slave device's Selected Feedback Return Exception signals during DMA operations.
<Parity OFF/Monitor OFF>, Parity ON /Monitor OFF, Parity
OFF/Monitor ON, Parity ON /Monitor ON

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One last thing before I stagger off to bed, the ES 32 does not use DMA,
if you look at the ADF, up at the top, just under fixed resources, you
will see "Begin NoDMA "

My SWAG, Streaming and/or Parity/Monitoring are the incompatible parts...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Wow, lots of great info, will dive into it after work today.
And looks like I might be in the market for a new adapter. Anybody have
a 3Com to spare? I think it would be the choice for using OS/2 Warp.

Cheers/2


On 07.01.2025 06:19, Louis Ohland wrote:

One last thing before I stagger off to bed, the ES 32 does not use DMA,
if you look at the ADF, up at the top, just under fixed resources, you
will see "Begin NoDMA "

My SWAG, Streaming and/or Parity/Monitoring are the incompatible parts...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Steffen Wolf... I like that even better than "MAJ Tom"... Born to be Wild...

Your quest with the ES 32 is one that I've not encountered before. The Streamers do not use the Store-and-Forward mechanism of previous NICs,
but uses a Pipelined process. Which is more CPU intensive...

The 8573-P70 uses a more sedate MCA bus [and a 386DX-20], where the
timing windows are adequate for adapters of that period. Schlamn in an
ES 32 from two or more years afterwards and what happens is anyone's guess.

https://www.ardent-tool.com/NIC/LS_Intro.html https://www.ardent-tool.com/NIC/IBM_NIC_Evol.html

However, anyone that has been into Micro Channel long enough will be
faced with making compromises [not kompromat] in order to get some functionality... Perhaps turning off the streaming and parity/feedback
_MIGHT_ reduce the CPU-load and that pesky black screen on boot...

I do not know of an EtherStreamer biased document to discuss the
workings of the ES models, but _ass u me_ the ethernet mechanism has
been pruned where possumble. My SWAG is that an ES will hammer the CPU
simular to a LS.

https://www.ardent-tool.com/config/adf_syntax.html

DMA_not_used = NoDMA
The DMA_not_used parameter indicates that arbitration levels for the named_items within the begin_device do not require a DMA channel. The
character string NoDMA is the keyword.

If this parameter is specified, the Set Configuration program does not
indicate that a DMA channel is required when an arbitration level is
used. If this parameter is not specified, the Set Configuration program indicates that a DMA channel is required when an arbitration level is used

Note: Bus masters should use the NoDMA keyword.

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https://www.ardent-tool.com/NIC/Ethernet_Bench.html

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