ALM serial ports hang?

[Larry McVoy]

In article <5242 at brazos.Rice.edu> harvard!cfisun!cfi.COM!rich at xait.UUCP (Rich Baughman -CFI-) writes:
>X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 56, message 5
>
>We are running SunOS 4.0.3 on our Sun3/180 and Sun3/280 file servers.
>Since our conversion to 4.0.3 two months ago, it seems the file servers'
>ALM (16-port serial port multiplexor) hangs itself periodically, requiring
>a reboot.  In particular, it happens to the 3/280 once or twice a week.
>Both servers are running kernals with the serial port patches from Sun.
>Does anyone have any ideas as to what we might do to avoid this?  Is there
>a hardware upgrade that fixes the problem?  I'm still waiting for the Sun
>Answer Line to respond to my call.  (No, I'm not holding my breath :-}

NOTICE: I don't claim to speak for Sun.  Try this at your own risk.

That said, a customer told me the other day that putting the ALM boards
closer to the CPU gives better performance and fixed a hang problem that
they had.  I believe that they said move from slots 10,11,12 to 2,3,4.
The difference seems to be that the closer you are to the CPU the higher
the interrupt priority or something like that.  If you try this and it
solves your problem without creating new problems, please post a summary
of what you did.

What I say is my opinion.  I am not paid to speak for Sun, I'm paid to hack.
    Besides, I frequently read news when I'm drjhgunghc, err, um, drunk.
Larry McVoy, Sun Microsystems     (415) 336-7627       ...!sun!lm or lm at sun.com