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Message-ID: <516877F0.9080301@delphij.net>
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:09:04 -0700
From: Xin Li <delphij@delphij.net>
Organization: The FreeBSD Project
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To: sbruno@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: bce(4) on the Dell PE 2950
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Cc: "freebsd-net@freebsd.org" <freebsd-net@freebsd.org>, davidch@FreeBSD.org,
 Sean Bruno <seanwbruno@gmail.com>
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(Added David to Cc)

On 04/12/13 13:56, Sean Bruno wrote:
> A note from clusteradm@freebsd.org
> 
> It looks like there is some amount of instability or bugginess in
> some of the Broadcom firmware(management) on the bce(4) chipeset
> shipped on later generations of the Poweredge 2950 from Dell:
> 
> bce0: <Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5708 1000Base-T (B2)>
> 
> Specifically, we've seen that newer (9 and higher) have issues with
> the doing initial setup and negotiation and that Dell did indeed
> release newer firmware to fix the issues.  This requires a full
> reboot into Linux (probably centos6) to get the update to execute.

I could be wrong but I *think* that the firmware is loaded on device
initialization, so there may be a chance that the driver can do it
when starting?  Additionally, maybe one can leverage the kernel
firmware(9) framework so that the firmware can be more easily updated
by user?

Cheers,
- -- 
Xin LI <delphij@delphij.net>    https://www.delphij.net/
FreeBSD - The Power to Serve!           Live free or die
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