Ethernet shutdown (?!) on Sperry 7000 running 4.3 BSD

[Malcolm L. Carlock]

About once every 1.5 months, on average, we go through the following little
routine with the Sperry 7000 (running the 4.3 Tahoe release of BSD Unix) we
have here:

- We lose ethernet connectivity to other machines.  We can ping ourselves,
  but no one else; no one else can ping us.

- Rebooting the system fixes this, but ONLY if we power the system off
  first.  Just going to the ROM monitor and back up doesn't do the trick.

- Wiggling the cable doesn't help (though one would think it might, given
  the horribly mechanically engineered AUI port on the back of the 7000)

- Plugging the Sperry's cable into a different port on the TCL box to which
  it connects doesn't help.

- No console messages complaining about ethernet hardware problems are ever
  seen, though as you can imagine we get some messages about broken TCP
  connections and such...

We're wondering whether this is some oddity with the 4.3 Tahoe distribution
on the Sperry, or whether it's just hardware.  Has anyone out there ever
run into this sort of thing?

Thanks,

Malcolm Carlock



Malcolm L. Carlock              Internet:  malc at unrvax.unr.edu
                                UUCP:      uunet!unrvax!malc