Hi

I want to use a Pentium 150 Mhz / 48 MB of RAM as a router for sharing
my Internet Connection between my home computers. Everything works
fine for web browsing, email reading but the Internet connection
stalls as soon as I put some load by starting some big downloads.
In this case, the solution is to connect to the router , do an
ifconfig down on the interface associated to the modem followed by a
restart of the dhcp client and the connection is back to life. The
system logs are completely empty : no error messages at all.
After updagrading all my software components to the latest version, I
decided to take a look at the hardware. It turns out that if I use a
PIII 500 MHz based system as my router, everything works fine even
under heavy load.
The router is basically made of four components : the main board, the
PCI USB board, the USB modem and the PCI Network card.
I installed the USB board & modem as well as the network card into the
PIII and reran a test : everything still works fine. Using 'top' on
the P150 Mhz, I see that the processor is used less that 10% at
full load and total memory consumption is around 12 MB.
I know now for sure that my problems are related to my hardware
configuration : but I have no clue on what to do next. I assume that a
P150 MHz is powerfull enough to run the router. For info, the DSL
connection is 2400 DL / 384 UL while the LAN is 100 MBits.
The distribution I use is a floppy based Linux From Scratch based on
2.4.24 kernel, uclibc 0.9.24 and busybox 1.00 pre 7.

I tried playing around with the latency of the PCI bus but with not that much success.
I am totally out if idea so any help would be appreciated.
Many thanks in advance.
Regards,
Tootoon


content of some files :
# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices
T: Bus=02 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#= 1 Spd=12 MxCh= 2
B: Alloc=329/900 us (37%), #Int= 1, #Iso= 6
D: Ver= 1.10 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 0.00
S: Product=USB OHCI Root Hub
S: SerialNumber=c3827000
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=40 MxPwr= 0mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 2 Ivl=255ms
T: Bus=02 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=01 Cnt=01 Dev#= 3 Spd=12 MxCh= 0
D: Ver= 1.00 Cls=02(comm.) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=1110 ProdID=9021 Rev=50.0b
S: Product=ADSL-USB Modem
S: SerialNumber=00604C14EB87
C:* #Ifs= 3 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=400mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=02(comm.) Sub=07 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=84(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 32 Ivl=1ms
I: If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=04(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl=0ms
E: Ad=02(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl=0ms
I: If#= 1 Alt= 1 #EPs= 2 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=04(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl=0ms
E: Ad=02(O) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 64 Ivl=1ms
I: If#= 2 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=82(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl=0ms
I: If#= 2 Alt= 1 #EPs= 1 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=88(I) Atr=01(Isoc) MxPS= 159 Ivl=1ms
I: If#= 2 Alt= 2 #EPs= 1 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=88(I) Atr=01(Isoc) MxPS= 265 Ivl=1ms
I: If#= 2 Alt= 3 #EPs= 1 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=88(I) Atr=01(Isoc) MxPS= 424 Ivl=1ms
I: If#= 2 Alt= 4 #EPs= 1 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=88(I) Atr=01(Isoc) MxPS= 530 Ivl=1ms
I: If#= 2 Alt= 5 #EPs= 1 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=88(I) Atr=01(Isoc) MxPS= 636 Ivl=1ms
I: If#= 2 Alt= 6 #EPs= 1 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=88(I) Atr=01(Isoc) MxPS= 795 Ivl=1ms
I: If#= 2 Alt= 7 #EPs= 1 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=88(I) Atr=01(Isoc) MxPS= 901 Ivl=1ms
I: If#= 2 Alt= 8 #EPs= 1 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=eagle-usb
E: Ad=88(I) Atr=01(Isoc) MxPS=1007 Ivl=1ms
T: Bus=01 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#= 1 Spd=12 MxCh= 3
B: Alloc= 0/900 us ( 0%), #Int= 0, #Iso= 0
D: Ver= 1.10 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 0.00
S: Product=USB OHCI Root Hub
S: SerialNumber=c3825000
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=40 MxPwr= 0mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 2 Ivl=255ms
# cat /proc/bus/usb/drivers
usbdevfs
hub
eagle-usb
#
# cat /proc/pci
PCI devices found:
Bus 0, device 0, function 0:
Class 0600: PCI device 8086:7030 (rev 2).
Master Capable. Latency=32.
Bus 0, device 7, function 0:
Class 0601: PCI device 8086:7000 (rev 1).
Bus 0, device 7, function 1:
Class 0101: PCI device 8086:7010 (rev 0).
Master Capable. Latency=32.
I/O at 0xf000 [0xf00f].
Bus 0, device 17, function 0:
Class 0200: PCI device 10ec:8139 (rev 16).
IRQ 15.
Master Capable. Latency=208. Min Gnt=32.Max Lat=64.
I/O at 0x6000 [0x60ff].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe1005000 [0xe10050ff].
Bus 0, device 18, function 0:
Class 0c03: PCI device 1033:0035 (rev 67).
IRQ 11.
Master Capable. Latency=32. Min Gnt=1.Max Lat=42.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe1006000 [0xe1006fff].
Bus 0, device 18, function 1:
Class 0c03: PCI device 1033:0035 (rev 67).
IRQ 15.
Master Capable. Latency=32. Min Gnt=1.Max Lat=42.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe1007000 [0xe1007fff].
Bus 0, device 18, function 2:
Class 0c03: PCI device 1033:00e0 (rev 4).
IRQ 10.
Master Capable. Latency=128. Min Gnt=16.Max Lat=34.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe1004000 [0xe10040ff].
Bus 0, device 19, function 0:
Class 0300: PCI device 102b:051a (rev 2).
IRQ 9.
Master Capable. Latency=32.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe1000000 [0xe1003fff].
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe0000000 [0xe07fffff].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe0800000 [0xe0ffffff].

For sure your CPU is powerful enough. I've used a 33MHz 486 in the past. I would be suspicious of that USB board tho'. Any interesting error messages in /var/log/syslog or /var/log/messages? Anything funny in /proc/interrupts?

Just guessing here. No expertise at all with USB devices.

Thanks for your reply maroonbaboon.

When the connection stalls, there is not a single error message in any log file.
I looked into /proc/interrupts and found out that the ethernet and usb board where sharing the same IRQ but isn't what PCI is meant for ? Anyway, I moved the network card to another PCI slot : now, all the entries in /proc/interrupts have a single IRQ. Unfortunately, the problem remains: a few minutes after I start a heavy download, the connection stalls, ie I get no reply from the Internet. In this case, the solution remains "ifconfig eth1 down" followed by a "udhcpc -i eth1".
Something positive is that the network card is still working perfectly as I connect to my box through telnet.
While trying to identify my problem, I used the USB board on my PIII machine and it really worked perfectly.
I am suspecting a problem between the motherboard (or the BIOS (Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG)) and the USB board as in case of breakdown, I only need to shut down the interface associated to the USB.
Thanks for your help !
Regards,

What about basic networking - duplex/speed satings, what does netstat -i report on the router? If there are many erros accumulate over time it might "hang" your connection - troubleshoot by ensuring the cabling. speed, duplex, etc is intact. On the hardware side of the setup - check the memory with memtest86 http://www.memtest86.com/#download0 - good luck.

Have a look at our forum http://eagle-usb.ath.cx/forum for driver eagle-usb ;-)
You may give a try to latest version 1.9.6 when it's available here : http://eagle-usb.ath.cx/eagledev/wak...ki=TestEagleUs (1.9.5 has a small bug for connection at boot, should be corrected this WE)