Re: High DPC Use and a Method to Reboot a network card?

Stephan Wolf [MVP] <stewo68@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[off-topic mode on]

This guy is programming an application that uses information provided
by a network card/driver. He is apparently not (very) familiar with
driver programming or hardware details. Much like I can drive my car
without having to know anything about the internals of my car's
machine.

The whole spirit and purpose of forums like this one is to help each
other, not SHOUT or make fun of someone elses perplexity.

Thanks, Stephan
[off-topic mode off]

I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

I have to deal with support issues more often than I'd like, and my
number one peeve is customers (or even support staff) who don't pay
enough attention to detail. I'm not talking about pushing them out
of their limited realm of expertise, either: I'm talking about really
simple stuff. Like, what OS version is the customer using? What
CPU are they running it on? What kind of networking adapter(s) do they
have? Either this information has an immediate bearing on the problem
at hand, or I'm going to need it later anyway when I sit down to try
to reproduce it. You'd think people would know by now to provide
all of this information up front, but trust me, they don't.

Now.

You may not be required to know how your car works in order to drive
it, but when it breaks, you _ARE_ required to pay enough attention to
detail so that when you take it to the mechanic to fix it, you can
provide an accurate description of what's wrong. If all you say is
"sometimes the engine makes a funny noise and belches smoke," it could
take the mechanic weeks to figure out what's causing the problem. It's
possible he might not be able to reproduce it at all. "Oh," you say,
when he tells you he can't find anything wrong, "I forgot to mention:
it only happens when I go past 50 mph. Does that matter?" At this point,
you'll be lucky if all the mechanic does is shout at you.

This is not a question of being unfamiliar with the technology. It's a
question of alertness and attention to detail. In some cases, sadly,
it can even be a question of reading comprehension. There is a vast
difference between saying "I tried a different card, and the problem
persists" and saying "I tried card model Blah from Vendor Foo and
the problem persists." He was alert enough to provide the make and
model of the first card, but dropped the ball when it came to positively
identifying the second. (And I don't care how screwed up the retail NIC
market is: you're never allowed to identify a device just by saying
"it's a DLink card." When you go to the shelf and see a huge pile of
DLink products staring back at you, it should become immediately obvious
that they don't make just one card.)

If the idea here is to help each other, everyone has a responsibility
to he equally helpful. The people who ask questions have to be every bit
as attentive and conscientious as the people who try to answer them.
And I'm not going to coddle people who choose to abdicate that
responsibility.

-Bill

--
=============================================================================
-Bill Paul (510) 749-2329 | Senior Engineer, Master of Unix-Fu
wpaul@#$(%($windriver###!#com | Wind River Systems
=============================================================================
"Ignorance may be bliss, but delusion is ecstasy!" -Perki
=============================================================================

---
Bill Paul wrote:
[..]
*sigh*

You know we can't see the card from here, right? So if all you tell
us is that it's "a DLink card" that's not going to tell us a damn thing
about what kind of chip it really has on it.

You could have at least told us the model number.

Or... is it really likely that two NIC manufactureres have fallen foul
problem!?

It's very likely. Was it this card?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.asp?image=33-127-134-05.JPG

If so, then congratulations: all you did was buy another Marvell-based
NIC, so you haven't really tested anything new at all, and you've been
wasting your time. Don't you love the retail computer market? I don't.
I hate it with a passion. I hate it because it's specifically geared
towards people like you, you can't tell one card from another anyway.

Go and get a TOTALLY DIFFERENT card. With a DIFFERENT CHIPSET. If you
can't tell what chipset it is, then ask someone to help you find out.
Here's a hint: DON'T GET ONE WITH A BIG GIANT LETTER 'M' ON IT!
Better still, learn how to check the PCI vendor/device ID.

Get one of these instead:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833106123

Or one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833156139

Or one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833181009

I'll bet you a quarter the problem doesn't show up with these. And
next time you write, tell us EXACTLY which one you got so we don't
have to guess.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated...

You really don't want to know what I'm thinking right now.

-Bill

=============================================================================
-Bill Paul (510) 749-2329 | Senior Engineer, Master of Unix-Fu
wpaul@#$(%($windriver###!#com | Wind River Systems
=============================================================================
"Ignorance may be bliss, but delusion is ecstasy!" -Perki
=============================================================================

.

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