Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!proteon.com!tvm
From: tvm@proteon.com (Tom Miceli)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.proteon
Subject: p4200 gives alignment errors
Message-ID: <8908152146.AA27775@monk.proteon.com>
Date: 15 Aug 89 21:46:01 GMT
References: <6549@oregon.uoregon.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 27

Dale,
	The "errors" you have been seeing on the ethernet segment are
generated by the interlan IL3010 board that is used in the Proteon
P4200. This occurs every 4 seconds when the interface sends out
maintenance packets. The details are as follows: "The IL3010 sends
packets to itself, making use of the controller, the transceiver cable
and connectors, the transceiver itself and the Ethernet coaxial cable.
All the ethernet rules are observed including backoff on collision
detect and aborting a transmission after 16 attempts. This maintenance
sequence causes the IL3010 to transmit two minimum length ethernet
packets with source and destination address of 2 7 1 0 0 0.  The first
of these is sent with an incorrect CRC byte appended, causing a CRC
error at all receiving stations. The second packet is sent with valid
CRC bytes appended."
	You have a few options to deal with this issue:
1) We can generate you a load that turns these maintenance packets
off. The pitfall to this is that the interface will not know that it
is down if something should happen to it.

2) You can replace the interlan interface board with a Proteon
Ethernet interface card (P4215).

3) Ignore the "errors" that show up on the receiving stations.

If you have any further questions let us know.

Thanks,		Tom Miceli