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