[Asterisk-Users] HDLC errors on PRI

[Rod Bacon]

The blanket statement that it's a motherbord or card problem is thrown around 
far too readily IMO. This is often just another way of saying that I have two 
(or more) pieces of hardware that don't play partucilarly nicely together in 
their default configuration, but I'm too lazy/busy/scared (I'm not accusing 
anyone here!) to sort it out.

Linux offers a great deal of fine-tuning of the PCI bus and the interrupt 
subsystem, and you can get asterisk/zaptel to work well on most hardware with a 
little effort.

Over the last six months, I have been through this extensively, and lost a lot 
of sleep in the process. I now have systems that I'd call solid.

Start with digium's recommendations with regard to IDE tuning (HDPARM), 
framebuffer support, ACPI, and APIC. There is a document on their website about 
optimising your system to support their hardware. Then, look into SMP IRQ 
Affinity (if you have an SMP system, and wish to leave APIC enabled). You can 
also search for PCI latency, and see if this helps.

Also, different versions of asterisk and zaptel can make a HUGE difference. I 
have had most success with 1.2Beta2 on my PSTN gateways, whilst still running 
STABLE on my IVR and VOIP servers.

If you have a card that can be upgraded to the new firmware, do it. I've had all 
3 of my 405P cards upgraded, and have noticed dramatic improvements in both 
performance and reliability.

Use zttest every time you make a change, and also make sure that you 
unload/reload zaptel, the card drivers and asterisk each time you make a change.



==========================================
Rod Bacon
Empowered Communications
Ground Floor, 102 York St. South Melbourne
Victoria, Australia. 3205
Phone: +613 99401600    Fax: +613 99401650
FWD: 512237                   ICQ: 5662270
==========================================


Eric "ManxPower" Wieling wrote:
> Matthew Fredrickson wrote:
> 
>> Yeah, post your relevant portions of zaptel.conf.  Usually it's a 
>> timing problem if you have HDLC abort errors.
> 
> 
> Actually, it's usually a motherboard or card problem that causes HDLC 
> errors.  Frequent causes are SATA controllers, IDE controllers, graphics 
> modes, RAID controllers, GIGE controllers, etc.  See the mailing list 
> archives for the extensive discussions on this issue.
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