Data transfer test and speed test for an ETHERNET port of embedded board

[Sreekumar87]

Hi,

I am working for verification team and currently in board testing level. Our team have developed a embedded board and its have ETHERNET feature. I need to verify the ETHERNET feature like ping test, data transfer test and speed test. I have planned the test cases for ping test and data transfer test using TCP/IP fascility of LabVIEW. But how can I do speed test?

Embedded board support 100Mbps speed. Embedded board have RS232 communication for testing purpose and also have diagnostic software. Let me get a solution for speed test?

[crossrulz]

The RS-232 will be A LOT slower than the Ethernet.  If you really want to push it, I recommend adding some code into your embedded board so that you can send a test command and the UUT then just spits stuff out as fast as it can.  You will then have to read all of that data and save it directly to a file.  If you use some very noticable pattern, it is simple to make sure you got everything.

[Sreekumar87]

Thank you so much. I also planning to make this requirement as a part of diagnostic code running on board. so LabVIEW will send test command to diagnostic code and diagnostic code will write some test data to PC drive location through ETHERNET and once writing completes, it will respond back. So with a timer running on LabVIEW we can get the speed for a predetermined data transfer and hence the speed of ETHERNET.

[Dennis_Knutson]

Are you looking for design validation or production testing? Design validation is often done, in my experience, with hardware such as what Spirent makes.

[Sreekumar87]

Design validation. Currently not planned any hardware to validate ETHERNET speed. I think LabVIEW + daignostic code running on UUT will take care speed test.

[Dennis_Knutson]

Except that you will see considerable variation in the timing when using software. When I worked for a company that manufactured routers, switches, and hubs, we used an instrument with precise hardware timing to validate the design specifications. The Spirent is not cheap but you can also rent one for a short time.

[Sreekumar87]

Thanks Your Dennis. I will propose same thing if development team really requires it. Actually the requirement is "baord should have an ETHERNET feature with atleast100Mbps speed". So if the by data transfer and timing if we get a speed more than 100mbps, test will pass eventhough some timing issue. Actually test fully running on diagnostic code so system time is not take part. What is your suggestion? This is the requirement comes under EE verification.

[Dennis_Knutson]

System time will be a factor on the pc side though, won't you, when you request some packets?

[Sreekumar87]

LabVIEW first send command to dignostics to start data writing through ETHERNET. Then diagnostics will record the current time and then starts to write some test data to PC drive location. Once the writing action completes, diagnostics again note the time and will return the differnce in time and send to PC. Same thing will do  for read operation and note the difference in time and send to PC. From file size and differnce in time, we can calculate the speed. He system time wont taken.

[natasftw]

Windows has a task manager.  This task will decide when the computer can, and cannot. read data.

The card can only send data as fast as the computer will recieve.  The PCs timing will drive when it accepts data from the card.  Unless you are using a computer without an operating system, software timing will have an impact and you will not get an accurate measure.