Updated: 24-SEP-2003 (Use your browsers' Reload button to ensure you're viewing the most recent version)
ALPLAN05_061 Alpha V6.1 Boot Drivers/LAN ECO Summary
Copyright (c) Digital Equipment Corporation 1996. All rights reserved.
OP/SYS: OpenVMS Alpha
COMPONENT: LAN - Local Area Network
Boot Drivers
SOURCE: Digital Equipment Corporation
ECO INFORMATION:
ECO Kit Name: ALPLAN05_061
ECO Kits Superseded by This ECO Kit: ALPLAN02_062 (OpenVMS Alpha V6.1)
AXPLAN04_061
ALPBOOT01_062
AXPLAN03_061
AXPLAN02_061
AXPLAN01_061
ECO Kit Approximate Size: 3618 Blocks
Kit Applies To: OpenVMS Alpha V6.1, V6.1-1H1, V6.1-1H2
System/Cluster Reboot Necessary: Yes
Installation Rating: 3 - To be installed on all systems running
the listed versions of OpenVMS which
are experiencing the problems described.
NOTE: In order to receive the full fixes listed in this kit,
the following remedial kits also need to be installed:
None
ECO KIT SUMMARY:
An ECO kit exists for LANs and Boot Drivers on OpenVMS Alpha
V6.1. This kit addresses the following problems:
Problems addressed in ALPLAN05_061 kit
o "ACCVIO" crashes in the LAN driver code (varying offsets on
different Ethernet only drivers) with R5 equal to zero.
This problem is corrected in OpenVMS Alpha V6.2
o BUGCHECK NETDLLERR crash in SYS$FADRIVER+0031F8. The SHOW
LAN/DEV=FA displays the "Last error CSR" field equal to 606.
The system will also have more than 2 gigabytes of memory for
this problem to appear.
o INVEXCEPTN crash in OTS$MOVE_C+00344. A large number of
multicast addresses being enabled, writes over the adapter
type field.
This problem is corrected in OpenVMS Alpha V6.2.
o Machinecheck, bugcheck (ICONIODB) crashes when DEFPA in use.
Crashed in EXCEPTION+0015D1C offset. Console version 4.1 is
installed for DEFPA support.
This problem is corrected in OpenVMS Alpha V6.2
o System crash during startup or shutdown at NET$FDDI+50DD when
trying to access an FDDI network management data structure that
does not exist. It is possible for a DECnet-OSI user to create
an FDDI station with CSMACD Network Management data structures.
o When stopping LAN protocols, some will not be removed from the
multicast table.
o Allocating a local data structure and overwriting existing
pointers causes 106 bytes of memory to be "lost" when deleting
the last user of the port.
Problems addressed in AXPLAN04_061 kit
o Varying kinds of pool corruption crashes. The pool corruption
always is below the 1GB address range. The TGEC supports 1GB
of memory. The driver uses a constant to determine at what
point it should copy to low memory buffers. The constant was
set at 2GB instead of 1GB.
Problems addressed in ALPLAN02_062 kit
o Separate the ALPBOOT01_062 remedial kit into separate kits for
LAN and BOOTDRIVER fixes.
Problems addressed in ALPBOOT01_062 kit
o Digital has determined that a condition exists in some
PCI-Ethernet interfaces in which there is an extremely remote
possibility for data corruption during network transmission.
Digital has received no customer complaints to date, but rather
first encountered the problem during internal product testing
and analysis. This specific condition exists when the PCI
interface is set to a DMA burst length of 0 or 32 longwords.
Using a DMA burst length of 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 longwords will
eliminate this condition. To address this concern, Digital is
making available a driver patch and considers its installation
mandatory for all affected systems and options to optimize data
integrity. No hardware modification or replacement is necessary.
This condition only exists under the Digital UNIX operating
system V3.2C and OpenVMS Alpha V6.1 (and variants, i.e. V6.1-1H1,
V6.1-1H2) and V6.2. Higher-level protocols and layered
applications may, in fact, detect the corruption and retry the
data transmission with some negligible affect on data throughput.
Windows NT has a default setting of 16 longwords for the DMA burst
length. This does not pose a risk unless a customer were to change
this setting.
The system and option products from Digital that are impacted
by this condition include:
DE434 PCI-Ethernet option AlphaServer 400 system
DE435 PCI-Ethernet option AlphaServer 1000 system
DE450 PCI-Ethernet option AlphaServer 2000 system
AlphaStation 200 system AlphaServer 2100 system
AlphaStation 250 system AlphaServer 8200 system
AlphaStation 400 system AlphaServer 8400 system
AlphaStation 600 system
For OpenVMS Alpha users, this condition exists in V6.1 (and
variants) and V6.2. Digital plans on providing the corrected
driver in all OpenVMS Alpha factory installed software as of
early December and in the V6.2-1H1 hardware release and the
V7.0 release scheduled for distribution in January 1996, as
well. Because the OpenVMS operating system drivers have this
parameter hard coded, it is not possible to change it without
loading a new driver.
Problems addressed in AXPLAN03_061 kit
o The images supplied with the AXPLAN02_061 kit were not
installable on OpenVMS AXP V6.1-1H2. This kit provides
corrected images that will install on V6.1, V6.1-1H1, V6.1-1H2.
Problems addressed in AXPLAN02_061 kit
o The DEFTA for TurboChannel systems, has a data corruption
problem. This fix provides a driver software fix for that
problem. Also, DEFPA support is added. This is not a problem
in V6.1-1H2.
o The SMC Tulip adapter requires software selection of thin
wire/thick wire. This fix adds this software selection to
the runtime driver and the boot driver.
******************* NOTE *******************
In order to receive this complete fix, the ALPBOOT06_061 kit
*MUST* also be installed.
**********************************************
Problems addressed in AXPLAN01_061 kit
o If multiple PCI LAN adapters are present in a system, typically
multiple Tulip PCI Ethernet adapters, the adapters may not be
configured properly resulting in the adapters being marked
offline.
******************* NOTE *******************
In order to receive the complete Third Party Tulip Ethernet Adaptor
fix listed under "Problems addressed in AXPLAN02_061 kit", the
AXPBOOT03_061 kit *MUST* also be installed.
**********************************************
RELATED ARTICLES:
Detailed articles describing the problems listed above may exist in
the OPENVMS database. To view these articles, open the appropriate
product database and perform a query using either of the following
search strings: 'ALPLAN05_061' or 'ALPLAN'.
ECO KIT ORDERING INSTRUCTIONS:
If after an evaluation you wish to obtain this kit, request it
electronically using the appropriate Advanced Electronic Services
(AES) Service Tool. If you are not familiar with how to request
kits electronically, open the DIA, WIS or DSNLINK database and
review the article entitled:
[AES] How To Electronically Request ECO Kits Using Service Tools
INSTALLATION NOTES:
In order for the corrections in this kit to take effect, the system
must be rebooted. If the system is a member of a VMScluster, the
entire cluster should be rebooted.
==========================================================================
| Table of Kit Image Information |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| | Overall | Image File | Image Link |
| Image Name | Checksum | Identification | Date/Time |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| CSMACD.EXE | 165BBF92 | X-7 | 30-SEP-1996 |
| | | 14:40:38.11 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| FDDI.EXE | 3806BCA3 | X-7 | 30-SEP-1996 |
| | | 14:40:40.20 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$ECDRIVER.EXE | 8A2C9B91 | X-3 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:10:00.57 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$ERDRIVER.EXE | 999FC174 | X-3 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:10:13.85 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$ESDRIVER.EXE | 5019001A | X-3 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:10:39.80 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$EWDRIVER.EXE | FC04B46A | X-3 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:10:26.88 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$EXDRIVER.EXE | 38C2814A | X-3 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:10:52.85 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$EZDRIVER.EXE | D8F9D921 | X-3 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:11:05.71 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$FADRIVER.EXE | B349B2D5 | X-3 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:11:18.67 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$FCDRIVER.EXE | 9DFB293E | X-3 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:11:31.80 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$FRDRIVER.EXE | 16FEFFD3 | X-3 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:11:45.23 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$FWDRIVER.EXE | E375BEE3 | X-3 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:11:58.24 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$FXDRIVER.EXE | B274DE36 | X-3 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:12:11.38 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$ICDRIVER.EXE | 2FE294C0 | X-8U2 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:12:38.36 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
| SYS$IRDRIVER.EXE | 19275797 | X-8U2 | 18-JUL-1996 |
| | | 18:12:24.82 |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------+--------------+
|
