[PLUG] ethernet: "short frame"

[Eric Lucas <eric@lucii.org>]

I'm not a network technician but I've been pressed into trying to troubleshoot
what is believed to be a network problem =8-O

[aside:  The symptom is a DOS application on two separate Win98 computers
randomly complains that it has lost network connectivity.  I'm sniffing 
the network with tcpdump to see if I can determine what the cause of this
failure is.]

I'm using tcpdump to create files (tcpdump -w logfile) and then examining them
with ethereal. A number of the packets say: "[short frame]" in the summary line
and "[short frame: NDBS]" or "[short frame: NMPI]" (for example) in the details
of the packet.

What is a "short frame"?  Is it a problem?  I _think_ that it means there is a 
collision that chops off the end of the packet and the packet should be
retransmitted.  There sure seems to be a considerable number of these "short
frames".

Google and some other internet searches have produced little useful (to me)
information.  :-|

Any insight would be appreciated 

Eric

-- 
Eric Lucas
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