Network adapter.

[Jon Tegner]

> This exact model, old release A1 (you can see it on the chip) works with
> the via-rhine driver. I suggest using the latest driver provided by
> Donald Becker from http://www.scyld.com/, and not the one included with
> the Linux kernel. It's not very efficient because the card is limited in
> functionnality, but it works.
> _But_ the B and C release of the included chip with the same reference
> on the box are only working with an experimental driver under
> development not found with current linux distribution. The same apply
> for the DFE-530TX+ cards. I would even suggest getting regular NE2000
> compatible cards instead of risking to have a lot of trouble with the
> recent dlink chips.

We have the A1 release, and the cards work - that is we get decent
communication speeds between two nodes. But if more than two nodes are
involved in calculations the speed goes down drastically (sometimes to
a complete stop). (This specific application runs with good
performance on other beowulfs.)

We are using the latest via-rhine from http://www.scyld.com/, but in
reference to the comment above we wonder if the lousy performance can
be a result of the DFE-530TX cards? Or is it likely something else is
causing this kind of problem? (And if we have to by new cards, would
the 3c905b-tx be a good choice?).

Jon Tegner