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Date:      Tue, 09 Jan 2001 21:23:01 -0600
From:      David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net>
To:        Bert Driehuis <bert_driehuis@nl.compuware.com>
Cc:        stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Intel PRO/100+ driver or hardware? (Update) 
Message-ID:  <200101100323.f0A3N1R33130@grumpy.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: Message from Bert Driehuis <bert_driehuis@nl.compuware.com>  of "Tue, 09 Jan 2001 20:43:20 %2B0100." <3A5B69D8.C46CE2D1@nl.compuware.com> 

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Bert Driehuis writes:
> "Jeroen C. van Gelderen" wrote:
> 
> > My conclusion is that the Intel cards I have are broken. They refuse to
> > work reliably in an otherwise healthy low-end network. I may have a bad
> > batch or maybe these cards are broken by design.
> 
> It is possible your motherboard vendor screwed up:
> 
> 	http://developer.intel.com/design/support/faq/82559.htm
> 
> Apparently, some motherboard vendors let boards go out with wrong wiring
> or capacitors (see the bottom of the page), and the symptoms match yours
> (which, I must stress, may very well be a coincidence).

If I'm following correctly Jeroen's problem is with genuine Intel 
Etherexpress Pro boards with the '59 chip. Not with an integrated 
chipset as discussed in the above URL.

Intel offers an interesting diagnostic suggestions: if it doesn't 
work with a short wire, try a long wire.

Suspect Jeroen's most timely solution is to permanently replace his
cards with something else. Altho he makes mention of a PCI riser card
which may alter the electrical reference the Intel card has to work
against. Am also thinking the computer power supply, or clock frequency
can be part of the problem. Or part of the solution. Wonder if
underclocking the system would make any differnce?

Have seen unreliable computers fixed by replacing the PS. And this was 
before CPU's started running off of anything other than plain old 5V.

As for non-Intel ethernet cards, 3 or 4 years ago when I first got to 
play with fast ethernet, found by accident that a 3Com card connected 
to a 3Com switch was more forgiving of wrongly pairing the cat5 wires 
than anything else connected to the same switch and wire.

IMHO am surprised this sort of thing doesn't happen more often.

--
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@hiwaay.net
=====================================================================
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its
capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.




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