DEQNA problems on uVAX II

[J Q Johnson]

We have been having a problem with our DEQNAs on all 5 of our MicroVAX II
machines (running 4.3bsd with Ultrix 1.1 holdovers).  Fairly frequently,
every couple of hours or so, the DEQNA hangs and needs to be reset.
Ultrix has a 30sec. watchdog timer which we changed to 5sec., but even a 
5sec. pause in Ethernet I/O is unacceptable to us, since we use the 
Ethernet quite heavily.

DEC has told us that this is a firmware problem in the DEQNA and unlikely
to be fixed soon.  However, since I hadn't seen any mention of the problem
on this list, I began to wonder whether it was in fact ubiquitous.  Ergo,
the questions:  (1) have other sites seen this problem?  (2) does anyone
have a fix?

Additional data:  it could, I suppose, be a configuration problem.  The
machines are all configured for general timesharing, with Ethernet used
for terminal traffic.  Each has an RQDX2, an SI controller and Eagle 
disks, 5 to 13MB memory, and nothing else.

Please reply by mail if possible.  I'll summarize if there are enough
responses:
UUCP:     jqj at cornell.UUCP or jqj at bullwinkle.UUCP
Internet: jqj at cornell.ARPA or jqj at gvax.CS.Cornell.EDU
BITNET:   jqj at CNRLCS.BITNET