Tunning high speed link parameters

An apparatus comprising:

• an eye pattern receiver configured to receive, at a second computing device, a waveform comprising an eye pattern transmitted from a first computing device, the first computing device connected to the second computing device with a cable comprising a transceiver at each end of the cable, wherein the received waveform is in response to the first computing device transmitting an eye pattern bit sequence in response to establishing a communication link between the first and second computing devices;
• a BER module configured to determine a bit error rate (“BER”) from the received waveform;
• a comparison module configured to compare the received waveform with an optimal eye pattern;
• an analysis module configured to derive quality information from the comparison of the received waveform with the optimal eye pattern and the determined BER;
• and
• a quality message transmitter configure to transmit an eye pattern quality message to the first computing device using a device discovery protocol, the eye pattern quality message comprising the quality information, wherein the first computing device adjusts transmission parameters in response to the eye pattern quality message and retransmits an eye pattern bit sequence to the second computing device.

A system comprising:

• a first computing device;
• a second computing device;
• a cable between the first computing device and the second computing device, the cable comprising a transceiver at each end;
• an eye pattern transmitter configured to transmit, in response to establishing a link, an eye pattern bit sequence from the first computing device to the second computing device over the cable, wherein establishing the link comprises a communication link module establishing a communication link over the cable between the first computing device and the second computing device;
• an eye pattern receiver configured to receive, at the second computing device, a waveform comprising the eye pattern bit sequence transmitted from the first computing device;
• a BER module configured to determine a bit error rate (“BER”) from the received waveform;
• a comparison module configured to compare the received waveform with an optimal eye pattern;
• an analysis module configured to derive quality information from the comparison of the received waveform with the optimal eye pattern and the determined BER;
• a quality message transmitter configure to transmit an eye pattern quality message to the first computing device using a device discovery protocol, the eye pattern quality message comprising the quality information;
• a quality message module configured to receive the eye pattern quality message from the second computing device using a device discovery protocol;
• an adjustment module configured to adjust transmission parameters for transmission over the cable in response to the quality information;
• and
• the eye pattern transmitter is further configured to retransmit the eye pattern bit sequence using the adjusted transmission parameters,
• wherein the quality message module continues to receive eye pattern quality messages, the adjustment module continues to adjust the transmission parameters from quality information from a most recently received eye pattern quality message, and the eye pattern transmission continues to retransmit the eye pattern bit sequence using the adjusted transmission parameters until a received eye pattern quality message indicates that a received eye pattern is within an acceptable tolerance of an optimal eye pattern.