Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
Hi Jim, Jim Van Meggelen wrote: Getting dedicated IRQs for the cards is a minor problem compared to what happens when you have four cards hammering away mercilessly at the chipset and CPU of your motherboard; 1000 IRQs per second, per card. Nobody's really sure what's wrong, but it causes problems for pretty nearly everyone. From your description it is very clear what is wrong - the machine is heavily over loaded (or sometime having load spikes) due to interrupt livelock. It spends so much resources dealing with interrupts that it doesn't have enough CPU time to handle any thing else. If anyone is interested in a very more info about this phenomena, simply search google for interrupt livelock and interrupt mitigation. Most of the research pertaining to this problem was done for network cards but it really applies to any source of (too many) interrupts. I've had some expereicne dealing with the problem in network cards. If I can help in any way... Cheers, Gilad -- Gilad Ben-Yossef [EMAIL PROTECTED] Codefidence. A name you can trust(tm) Web: http://codefidence.com | SIP: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: +972.9.8650475 ext. 201 | Fax: +972.9.8850643 I am Jack's Overwritten Stack Pointer -- Hackers Club, the movie ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
Getting dedicated IRQs for the cards is a minor problem compared to what happens when you have four cards hammering away mercilessly at the chipset and CPU of your motherboard; 1000 IRQs per second, per card. Nobody's really sure what's wrong, but it causes problems for pretty nearly everyone. Would the same issues arise with the use of a single Voicetronix 12 port card? What about using 2 of them in the same machine? Thanks Grady ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
On Mon, Dec 13, 2004 at 03:15:18PM -0600, Grady Trew, Jr. wrote: Getting dedicated IRQs for the cards is a minor problem compared to what happens when you have four cards hammering away mercilessly at the chipset and CPU of your motherboard; 1000 IRQs per second, per card. Nobody's really sure what's wrong, but it causes problems for pretty nearly everyone. Would the same issues arise with the use of a single Voicetronix 12 port card? What about using 2 of them in the same machine? This would be rather silly as you'd be better off price wise getting a single T1 card and a channel bank. Otherwise, the Voicetronix board may or may not even do the 1k/s. -- Mike Mattice - Systems Programmer and Administrator ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Grady Trew, Jr. Sent: December 13, 2004 4:15 PM To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion' Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc Getting dedicated IRQs for the cards is a minor problem compared to what happens when you have four cards hammering away mercilessly at the chipset and CPU of your motherboard; 1000 IRQs per second, per card. Nobody's really sure what's wrong, but it causes problems for pretty nearly everyone. Would the same issues arise with the use of a single Voicetronix 12 port card? What about using 2 of them in the same machine? The problem isn't _exactly_ the volume of interrupts, but rather the need to have each one serviced immediately, and none get missed. The Zaptel cards are unique in that they do not have a DSP (Digital Signal Processor - a chip that handles audio) on board, and thus must get the CPU to perform this. The job gets done, but the human ear hears about any samples that get missed. Mostly, this problem seems to show up as echo. Any other telephony card will tend to have it's DSPs on board, and thus will generally be less succeptable to this problem. I couldn't speak about the Audiotronix cards per se, but I am very interested in them. Ultimately, any time you run audio through a PC you need to be sure the system is up to the task. The more calls/connections happening, the more chances that a delay will occurr. _any_ delay will generally be heard by the users as _something_ (echo, static, distortion, clicks, pops, etc). ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi. Please excuse me asking this again. But it really puzzles me. It is puzzling, no denying it. The development team is still struggling with these issues, and so far there has not been found a foolproof solution (at least I can't recall having seen one). We're installing asterisk at a branch office at NJ (HQ is at Petach-Tikva) It'll need to support 5 POTS lines, 11 analog extensions and four VOIP phones. I wanted to go with a T1 card from digium and a channel bank, but we have a dead line. It has to be up and running by January 1st. I don't have the time to start shopping at ebay, where you don't know what you'll get, and you need to install, under time pressure something you not familiar with. For sure, but you should also consider the experience of those who have been there before you. So I thought of installing a combination of four pci cards in the machine, and everybody on the list just keeps telling me it won't work. It _might_ work, but it is almost guaranteed not to work _well_. The Digium PCI cards are rather different from any PCI card you may have used in the past. I have installed successfully more then four cards in a machine before. I had a firewall with eight network interfaces (one quad card, one duo and two singles) I have machines with two dialogic boards, a pci display card, and a network interface. And I know I've had machines at home that had a display adaptor, modem, network, scsi, and soundblaster all together. Yep, so have we all. The thing is, just ONE of these Digium cards will request more interrupts all by its lonesome than every single PCI card you've ever installed in all the machines you've ever owned, all put together! Well, perhaps not, but seriously, these things work very differently from any PCI card you've ever seen before. Yet, people claim it won't work because of lack of IRQs, and that it's not related to Digium. That isn't strictly correct, but the problem does pertain to IRQs. OK, look, you _might_ be able to free up enough IRQs on a PIC-based motherboard -- if you disable the serial ports, mouse, parallel port and USB. It's not recommended, but it's theoretically possible. And if you have a MoBo that is APIC-compliant, you should be able to have all the IRQs you can handle, so lack of IRQs doesn't need to be an issue (make sure you have a BIOS and chipset that's up to the task). BUT . . . Getting dedicated IRQs for the cards is a minor problem compared to what happens when you have four cards hammering away mercilessly at the chipset and CPU of your motherboard; 1000 IRQs per second, per card. Nobody's really sure what's wrong, but it causes problems for pretty nearly everyone. What everyone here is saying is that we're all pretty sure you're gonna run into problems; problems that could easily be avoided by avoiding the whole TDM400 mess in the first place. What am I missing? The Digium cards are unique in the world of telephony, because instead of having an expensive DSP chip on board, they use the CPU to provide this functionality. The challenge comes from the fact that voice is intolerant of delay. In order to ensure that the voice processing that goes on in the CPU is handled with no perceivable delay, the zaptel cards have to establish a kind of pseudo-synchronous clocking with the CPU. Unfortunately, the signalling bus on a PC isn't synchronous, at least not in that way. The clock that the zaptel cards use is the IRQ of the card, literally requesting the CPU interrupt what it's doing and pay attention to it 1000 times per second, regardless of what it's doing. You are proposing the use of FOUR of these cards. Since this has caused trouble for nearly everyone who has tried it, everyone is suggesting that you might want to give the matter some careful thought. There _are_ less painful ways. Cheers, Jim. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
I have done multi-TDM4xx cards in a box. DO NOT TRY THIS!! Sorry for yelling but, Our system worked, and I use that term loosely, for about a week. The hardware simply cannot handle the onslaught of IRQ's that this causes. We got popping and beeping, and dead lines. We put each card in a separate machine, and used IAX to link them. All is working perfectly now. I am going to try TDMOE next. If you are interested in the results of that, contact me off list. (DO NOT just send me a message saying just "Yes I am interested" I have received several of those and the just get nuked 'cause I don't know what the are interested in) -- Christopher Dobbs Shoval Tomer wrote: Hi. Please excuse me asking this again. But it really puzzles me. We're installing asterisk at a branch office at NJ (HQ is at Petach-Tikva) It'll need to support 5 POTS lines, 11 analog extensions and four VOIP phones. I wanted to go with a T1 card from digium and a channel bank, but we have a dead line. It has to be up and running by January 1st. I don't have the time to start shopping at ebay, where you don't know what you'll get, and you need to install, under time pressure something you not familiar with. So I thought of installing a combination of four pci cards in the machine, and everybody on the list just keeps telling me it won't work. I have installed successfully more then four cards in a machine before. I had a firewall with eight network interfaces (one quad card, one duo and two singles) I have machines with two dialogic boards, a pci display card, and a network interface. And I know I've had machines at home that had a display adaptor, modem, network, scsi, and soundblaster all together. Yet, people claim it won't work because of lack of IRQs, and that it's not related to Digium. What am I missing? Shoval Tomer, IT Manager, SofTov Advanced Systems, Ltd. Office: +972-3-9230686 ext. 179 Fax: +972-3-9216642 Mobile: +972-54-8000200 ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
[Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
Hi. Please excuse me asking this again. But it really puzzles me. We're installing asterisk at a branch office at NJ (HQ is at Petach-Tikva) It'll need to support 5 POTS lines, 11 analog extensions and four VOIP phones. I wanted to go with a T1 card from digium and a channel bank, but we have a dead line. It has to be up and running by January 1st. I don't have the time to start shopping at ebay, where you don't know what you'll get, and you need to install, under time pressure something you not familiar with. So I thought of installing a combination of four pci cards in the machine, and everybody on the list just keeps telling me it won't work. I have installed successfully more then four cards in a machine before. I had a firewall with eight network interfaces (one quad card, one duo and two singles) I have machines with two dialogic boards, a pci display card, and a network interface. And I know I've had machines at home that had a display adaptor, modem, network, scsi, and soundblaster all together. Yet, people claim it won't work because of lack of IRQs, and that it's not related to Digium. What am I missing? Shoval Tomer, IT Manager, SofTov Advanced Systems, Ltd. Office: +972-3-9230686 ext. 179 Fax: +972-3-9216642 Mobile: +972-54-8000200 ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
On Thu, 2004-12-09 at 14:23 +0200, Shoval Tomer wrote: Hi. Please excuse me asking this again. But it really puzzles me. We're installing asterisk at a branch office at NJ (HQ is at Petach-Tikva) It'll need to support 5 POTS lines, 11 analog extensions and four VOIP phones. I wanted to go with a T1 card from digium and a channel bank, but we have a dead line. It has to be up and running by January 1st. I don't have the time to start shopping at ebay, where you don't know what you'll get, and you need to install, under time pressure something you not familiar with. So I thought of installing a combination of four pci cards in the machine, and everybody on the list just keeps telling me it won't work. I have installed successfully more then four cards in a machine before. I had a firewall with eight network interfaces (one quad card, one duo and two singles) I have machines with two dialogic boards, a pci display card, and a network interface. And I know I've had machines at home that had a display adaptor, modem, network, scsi, and soundblaster all together. Yet, people claim it won't work because of lack of IRQs, and that it's not related to Digium. What am I missing? Perhaps I'm missing something. If you think everyone else is wrong why don't you just carry on and do it. If you're right you can tell everyone, if you prove everyone right you might even join the chorus when some one else starts the same thread. Just my 0.02¤ -- Dave Cotton [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
So I thought of installing a combination of four pci cards in the machine, and everybody on the list just keeps telling me it won't work. You have 5 POTS lines and 4 X100P cards? Sounds like a complete drag... At any rate, why don't you buy a TDM400P with 4 FXO ports? I've bought one off digitnetworks with UPS shipping and it was delivered under a week. Not bad for half around the world trip :-) I have installed successfully more then four cards in a machine before. I had a firewall with eight network interfaces (one quad card, one duo and two singles) Well I also ordered a X100P clone and it was fighting for IRQ 10 with the ethernet card and the existing ISDN card. I had to unplug, reboot, shut down, replug, reboot... drag. Sticking 5 X100Ps might work but then again maybe not... I've never tried it anyway. Yet, people claim it won't work because of lack of IRQs, and that it's not related to Digium. What am I missing? I think it's a good question and I am wondering the same thing. What's up with that? I thought IRQs were a thing of the past... ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
On Thu, 2004-12-09 at 14:23 +0200, Shoval Tomer wrote: Hi. Please excuse me asking this again. But it really puzzles me. Asking multiple times does not change a proper answer. We're installing asterisk at a branch office at NJ (HQ is at Petach-Tikva) It'll need to support 5 POTS lines, 11 analog extensions and four VOIP phones. I wanted to go with a T1 card from digium and a channel bank, but we have a dead line. It has to be up and running by January 1st. I don't have the time to start shopping at ebay, where you don't know what you'll get, and you need to install, under time pressure something you not familiar with. Then why don't you buy a new channel bank? They are available but a bit costly. You know you will get a good device and no time frame. Of course for ebay... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemcategory=51279item=5737077189rd=1 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemcategory=51268item=5736884544rd=1 And these 2 FXO cards. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemcategory=51279item=5736458763rd=1 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemcategory=67286item=5735996388rd=1 So I thought of installing a combination of four pci cards in the machine, and everybody on the list just keeps telling me it won't work. I have installed successfully more then four cards in a machine before. I had a firewall with eight network interfaces (one quad card, one duo and two singles) I have machines with two dialogic boards, a pci display card, and a network interface. And I know I've had machines at home that had a display adaptor, modem, network, scsi, and soundblaster all together. Yet, people claim it won't work because of lack of IRQs, and that it's not related to Digium. You need to understand that the Digium cards generate 1000 interupt requests per second per card. So 4 Digium cards generate 4000 interupts per second. Your system will start to buckle under the load if you had enough of a computer to begin with. Your other experiences had not been with a device that needed realtime access. For example with your network cards, they are all packet based and if the packet isn't received or acked, it just gets resent. For your other deployment, the SCSI card doesn't need realtime access as it can be buffered, video isn't realtime, modem needs faster access if it is winmodem but not otherwise, and the soundcard is real low interupt count, and the network card follows the above example. You should some time build a system for analog video capture on 7 year old hardware or worse to be under the performance gun. -- Steven Critchfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
I've been running an Asterisk box with 4 FXO ports and 12 FXS ports for months. The cards are sharing interrupts. The machine has one network card too. The system behaves very well. In my experience, putting multiple TDM cards in one box works. I've not been so lucky with multiple T1/E1 cards, though. Fernando Shoval Tomer wrote: Hi. Please excuse me asking this again. But it really puzzles me. We're installing asterisk at a branch office at NJ (HQ is at Petach-Tikva) It'll need to support 5 POTS lines, 11 analog extensions and four VOIP phones. I wanted to go with a T1 card from digium and a channel bank, but we have a dead line. It has to be up and running by January 1st. I don't have the time to start shopping at ebay, where you don't know what you'll get, and you need to install, under time pressure something you not familiar with. So I thought of installing a combination of four pci cards in the machine, and everybody on the list just keeps telling me it won't work. I have installed successfully more then four cards in a machine before. I had a firewall with eight network interfaces (one quad card, one duo and two singles) I have machines with two dialogic boards, a pci display card, and a network interface. And I know I've had machines at home that had a display adaptor, modem, network, scsi, and soundblaster all together. Yet, people claim it won't work because of lack of IRQs, and that it's not related to Digium. What am I missing? Shoval Tomer, IT Manager, SofTov Advanced Systems, Ltd. Office: +972-3-9230686 ext. 179 Fax: +972-3-9216642 Mobile: +972-54-8000200 ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
I have installed successfully more then four cards in a machine before. I had a firewall with eight network interfaces (one quad card, one duo and two singles) I have machines with two dialogic boards, a pci display card, and a network interface. And I know I've had machines at home that had a display adaptor, modem, network, scsi, and soundblaster all together. Yet, people claim it won't work because of lack of IRQs, and that it's not related to Digium. What am I missing? There has been a lot of comments over the last 12 months or so relative on this. The issue is _not_ the number of interrupts, but rather the ability of those interrupts to handle the flow of data across the bus _without_ injecting delay. That ability seems to be directly related to exactly how the interrupts are handled on _each_ motherboard, and seems to have some relationship to the pci support chips on the motherboard. There are plenty of implementations that _do_ share interrupts with absolutely no problems, and at least some of those are represented to be rather heavily loaded. There's also been a fair number of people that have had problems with the latest/fanciest/fastest system, and swapping out the motherboard with a 800 mhz P3 fixed their issues. What else actually changed during that swap? No one knows for sure, but supposedly nothing. The current list of symptoms/issues reads something like this: - processor speed has little/nothing to do with it - dual vs single processors has nothing to do with it - amount of ram, etc, has nothing to do with it - the linux distro in use has nothing to do with - digium cards expect a solid 1000 interrupts/second/card with no interrupt service latency - those heavily involved with audio (not voip audio) have known about pci interrupt latency issues with certain motherboards. They seem to be more sensitive to the issues then * is. No one has found a list of what _they_ consider to be bad boards. - there is no consolidated list of what motherboards work vs don't partially due to the difficulty of describing boards from vendors (eg, Dell, HP), and in some cases, different boards used in the same model number of system. - if a particular motherboard has an issue, the problem typically appears as echo on pstn calls (one direction only) - there are no tools that anyone has written/found to help identify which systems/motherboards have issues - although some people represent that digium support is working on something, those words have been heard before and the problems still exist (at least for some). So, it seems the only _reliable_ answer to your question is to try it on whatever hardware you have available. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
You need to understand that the Digium cards generate 1000 interupt requests per second per card. So 4 Digium cards generate 4000 interupts per second. Your system will start to buckle under the load if you had enough of a computer to begin with. (Pardon my hardware ignorance) Why do the cards need 1000 interupts per second? What is that doing? Matthew ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
Matthew Boehm wrote: You need to understand that the Digium cards generate 1000 interupt requests per second per card. So 4 Digium cards generate 4000 interupts per second. Your system will start to buckle under the load if you had enough of a computer to begin with. (Pardon my hardware ignorance) Why do the cards need 1000 interupts per second? What is that doing? Matthew Matthew, Timing. MeetMe, IAX trunking and all of the other components of Asterisk that need accurate timing need 1000hz timing, or 1000 clicks per second. The digium cards generate those for you. At Astricon I asked why you need that accurate of a timing source, and Matt Frederickson from Digium said that you need very accurate timing when mixing audio streams (like in IAX trunking and MeetMe), to keep the audio in sync. It makes sense, I guess... -- Kristian Kielhofner ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
On Thu, 2004-12-09 at 10:27 -0600, Matthew Boehm wrote: You need to understand that the Digium cards generate 1000 interupt requests per second per card. So 4 Digium cards generate 4000 interupts per second. Your system will start to buckle under the load if you had enough of a computer to begin with. (Pardon my hardware ignorance) Why do the cards need 1000 interupts per second? What is that doing? IT wouldn't be so hard to pardon your ignorance if this hadn't been discussed many times on the list before and is covered in the archives. You should have googled for it. In an attempt to make sure the archives stop getting diluted with (probably mine mostly) flames of people who don't look up the information, I will go ahead and repeat the information here. Digium cards need 1000 interupts per card per second due to the lack of onboard buffer. The buffer was left off of the design to keep the design simple and therefore inexpensive. All the cards present 8 bits of data per channel during that interupt and as all telephony is 8000 bits per channel per second 8000/8 = 1000 service needs per second. An interupt is the way hardware requests service. -- Steven Critchfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
What is the motherboard model in the pc running asterisk? Is it a desktop or a server? -Original Message- From: Fernando Mac?as [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 5:24 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc I've been running an Asterisk box with 4 FXO ports and 12 FXS ports for months. The cards are sharing interrupts. The machine has one network card too. The system behaves very well. In my experience, putting multiple TDM cards in one box works. I've not been so lucky with multiple T1/E1 cards, though. Fernando Shoval Tomer wrote: Hi. Please excuse me asking this again. But it really puzzles me. We're installing asterisk at a branch office at NJ (HQ is at Petach-Tikva) It'll need to support 5 POTS lines, 11 analog extensions and four VOIP phones. I wanted to go with a T1 card from digium and a channel bank, but we have a dead line. It has to be up and running by January 1st. I don't have the time to start shopping at ebay, where you don't know what you'll get, and you need to install, under time pressure something you not familiar with. So I thought of installing a combination of four pci cards in the machine, and everybody on the list just keeps telling me it won't work. I have installed successfully more then four cards in a machine before. I had a firewall with eight network interfaces (one quad card, one duo and two singles) I have machines with two dialogic boards, a pci display card, and a network interface. And I know I've had machines at home that had a display adaptor, modem, network, scsi, and soundblaster all together. Yet, people claim it won't work because of lack of IRQs, and that it's not related to Digium. What am I missing? Shoval Tomer, IT Manager, SofTov Advanced Systems, Ltd. Office: +972-3-9230686 ext. 179 Fax: +972-3-9216642 Mobile: +972-54-8000200 ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
Rich, thank you so much for taking the time to patiently explain the issue. I think this ought to be on the wiki for future newbies. Thanks. -Original Message- From: Rich Adamson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 5:39 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc I have installed successfully more then four cards in a machine before. I had a firewall with eight network interfaces (one quad card, one duo and two singles) I have machines with two dialogic boards, a pci display card, and a network interface. And I know I've had machines at home that had a display adaptor, modem, network, scsi, and soundblaster all together. Yet, people claim it won't work because of lack of IRQs, and that it's not related to Digium. What am I missing? There has been a lot of comments over the last 12 months or so relative on this. The issue is _not_ the number of interrupts, but rather the ability of those interrupts to handle the flow of data across the bus _without_ injecting delay. That ability seems to be directly related to exactly how the interrupts are handled on _each_ motherboard, and seems to have some relationship to the pci support chips on the motherboard. There are plenty of implementations that _do_ share interrupts with absolutely no problems, and at least some of those are represented to be rather heavily loaded. There's also been a fair number of people that have had problems with the latest/fanciest/fastest system, and swapping out the motherboard with a 800 mhz P3 fixed their issues. What else actually changed during that swap? No one knows for sure, but supposedly nothing. The current list of symptoms/issues reads something like this: - processor speed has little/nothing to do with it - dual vs single processors has nothing to do with it - amount of ram, etc, has nothing to do with it - the linux distro in use has nothing to do with - digium cards expect a solid 1000 interrupts/second/card with no interrupt service latency - those heavily involved with audio (not voip audio) have known about pci interrupt latency issues with certain motherboards. They seem to be more sensitive to the issues then * is. No one has found a list of what _they_ consider to be bad boards. - there is no consolidated list of what motherboards work vs don't partially due to the difficulty of describing boards from vendors (eg, Dell, HP), and in some cases, different boards used in the same model number of system. - if a particular motherboard has an issue, the problem typically appears as echo on pstn calls (one direction only) - there are no tools that anyone has written/found to help identify which systems/motherboards have issues - although some people represent that digium support is working on something, those words have been heard before and the problems still exist (at least for some). So, it seems the only _reliable_ answer to your question is to try it on whatever hardware you have available. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
Think we've all have hope the issue will go away, then wouldn't need to be on the wiki. :) Rich, thank you so much for taking the time to patiently explain the issue. I think this ought to be on the wiki for future newbies. Thanks. -Original Message- From: Rich Adamson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 5:39 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc I have installed successfully more then four cards in a machine before. I had a firewall with eight network interfaces (one quad card, one duo and two singles) I have machines with two dialogic boards, a pci display card, and a network interface. And I know I've had machines at home that had a display adaptor, modem, network, scsi, and soundblaster all together. Yet, people claim it won't work because of lack of IRQs, and that it's not related to Digium. What am I missing? There has been a lot of comments over the last 12 months or so relative on this. The issue is _not_ the number of interrupts, but rather the ability of those interrupts to handle the flow of data across the bus _without_ injecting delay. That ability seems to be directly related to exactly how the interrupts are handled on _each_ motherboard, and seems to have some relationship to the pci support chips on the motherboard. There are plenty of implementations that _do_ share interrupts with absolutely no problems, and at least some of those are represented to be rather heavily loaded. There's also been a fair number of people that have had problems with the latest/fanciest/fastest system, and swapping out the motherboard with a 800 mhz P3 fixed their issues. What else actually changed during that swap? No one knows for sure, but supposedly nothing. The current list of symptoms/issues reads something like this: - processor speed has little/nothing to do with it - dual vs single processors has nothing to do with it - amount of ram, etc, has nothing to do with it - the linux distro in use has nothing to do with - digium cards expect a solid 1000 interrupts/second/card with no interrupt service latency - those heavily involved with audio (not voip audio) have known about pci interrupt latency issues with certain motherboards. They seem to be more sensitive to the issues then * is. No one has found a list of what _they_ consider to be bad boards. - there is no consolidated list of what motherboards work vs don't partially due to the difficulty of describing boards from vendors (eg, Dell, HP), and in some cases, different boards used in the same model number of system. - if a particular motherboard has an issue, the problem typically appears as echo on pstn calls (one direction only) - there are no tools that anyone has written/found to help identify which systems/motherboards have issues - although some people represent that digium support is working on something, those words have been heard before and the problems still exist (at least for some). So, it seems the only _reliable_ answer to your question is to try it on whatever hardware you have available. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ---End of Original Message- ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
On Thu, 9 Dec 2004, Steven Critchfield wrote: Digium cards need 1000 interupts per card per second due to the lack of onboard buffer. The buffer was left off of the design to keep the design simple and therefore inexpensive. All the cards present 8 bits of data per channel during that interupt and as all telephony is 8000 bits per channel per second 8000/8 = 1000 service needs per second. An interupt is the way hardware requests service. A channel is 64000 bits per second or 8000 8-bit samples. The Digium cards transfer 8 samples or 64 bits per interrupt per channel. Another important reason for the small buffer is to minimize the latency of a call switched through Asterisk. Larger buffers would imply larger latnecies and latency is the enemy of voice communication for several reasons that are listed in the wiki. Peter ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] four wildcards in a single pc
On Thu, 2004-12-09 at 20:59 +0100, Peter Svensson wrote: On Thu, 9 Dec 2004, Steven Critchfield wrote: Digium cards need 1000 interupts per card per second due to the lack of onboard buffer. The buffer was left off of the design to keep the design simple and therefore inexpensive. All the cards present 8 bits of data per channel during that interupt and as all telephony is 8000 bits per channel per second 8000/8 = 1000 service needs per second. An interupt is the way hardware requests service. A channel is 64000 bits per second or 8000 8-bit samples. The Digium cards transfer 8 samples or 64 bits per interrupt per channel. Another important reason for the small buffer is to minimize the latency of a call switched through Asterisk. Larger buffers would imply larger latnecies and latency is the enemy of voice communication for several reasons that are listed in the wiki. This is a good example for the newbies of the list as to why proper formatting and list ettiquitte is important. I made a mistake, it was easy enough for someone to come around behind me and correct the message. We all can make mistakes. -- Steven Critchfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
