(ASCEND) COMPLETE BULLSHIT

["Troy Settle" <st@i-Plus.net>]

This is complete bullshit.

I've got a remote POP that consists of the following:

1 Cisco 3620
1 Max 6096
2 Max 4048's
1 Max 4004
2 Pipeline 50's
1 Homebrew FreeBSD box

Now, out of all these machines, the damn 6096 insists on completely *LOSING*
it's ethernet connectivity.  I mean NOTHING gets passed on the lan.  Out of
~380 million packets moved across the ethernet interface, there are only ~6
million reported collisions.  A collision rate of <2%, so I think it's safe
to rule out the media, hubs, and other devices as possible culprits.

The quick, temporary fix is to go into Ethernet -> Mod Config -> Ether
Options, and change something... ANYTHING, and *BOOM* the etnernet starts
working again.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?

The first time this happened, the box was running 6.1.7.

I fought with this for 2 days before I could get it stable again.  In the
process, the max was flashed with 7.0.22

Now, 43 days later, this shit is starting all over again, and I want some
friggin answers, but I have to wait 'til morning before I can call the
idiots at ascend and be placed in their hold queue.  God I hate my life.

Warning to everyone on this list:

Of the 3 6000 machines purchaced, here's a breakdown of how they've behaved:

	1. Lost config on reboot (I did do an fsave before rebooting)
	2. Rebooted and came up with a NVRAM checksum error.  Had to RMA
	3. This god damned ethernet flakeyness

It's really suprising that Lucent chose Ascend as the path for the future of
their remote access division.  I almost like the interface.  We depend on
the radius accounting information.  Compatibility is great.  Performance
could be improved, but has been satisfactory.  BUT THE DAMN BOXES AREN'T
RELIABLE FOR SHIT!

Other hardware from ascend that we have a problem with include:

  - modem cards not always initializing on power up.
  - Max 1800 that has throuput problems
  - Pipelines that can't do NAT for any length of time
  - ** Insert problem here **


What really sucks a big one, is that when Alcatel bought up Assured Access,
they told the AA engineering team that the AA box was to be 100% Ascend
compatibile within a certain time frame.  Well, I'm told by our friendly
sales engineer that it's been done, but still the AA doesn't spit out the
same radius accounting that the Ascend does.

Seems trivial, but over the last 3 years, our entire helpdesk operation is
built around Ascend's accounting information (which no other NAS I've seen
comes close to being as detailed).


Thanks for listening to me bitch...

--
  Troy Settle
  iPlus Internet Services


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