From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 20 11:18:38 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2689E1065695 for ; Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:18:38 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jmc-freebsd2@milibyte.co.uk) Received: from relay.pcl-ipout02.plus.net (relay.pcl-ipout02.plus.net [212.159.7.100]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B0D358FC18 for ; Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:18:37 +0000 (UTC) X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AvsEAOuhN03Unw4S/2dsb2JhbACkUXO+B4VQBA Received: from outmx06.plus.net ([212.159.14.18]) by relay.pcl-ipout02.plus.net with ESMTP; 20 Jan 2011 10:49:27 +0000 Received: from helix.plus.com ([84.92.153.232] helo=curlew.milibyte.co.uk) by outmx06.plus.net with esmtp (Exim) id 1Pfs50-00074w-Ve; Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:49:27 +0000 Received: by curlew.milibyte.co.uk with local (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1Pfs4z-0000i4-J6; Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:49:25 +0000 From: Mike Clarke To: pyunyh@gmail.com, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, bf1783@gmail.com Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:49:25 +0000 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.10 References: <20110120003538.GE12030@michelle.cdnetworks.com> In-Reply-To: <20110120003538.GE12030@michelle.cdnetworks.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <201101201049.25511.jmc-freebsd2@milibyte.co.uk> X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: jmc-freebsd2@milibyte.co.uk X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on curlew.milibyte.co.uk); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Cc: Subject: Re: Which network driver for RTL8211 or 8201 NIC's? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:18:38 -0000 On Thursday 20 January 2011, Pyun YongHyeon wrote: > On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 11:54:54PM +0000, b. f. wrote: > > Mike Clarke wrote: > > > I need to replace a failing motherboard. I'm aiming to keep the > > > existing Athlon CPU so I'm tied down to to a socket AM2(+) board > > > and the majority of those available seem to have nForce 630a > > > chipsets and RTL8211CL or 8201EL NIC's which aren't explicitly > > > mentioned in the release notes > > > . I > > > see that the strings RTL8211C(L) and RTL8201L (but not EL) appear > > > in /usr/src/sys/dev/rgephy.c and rlphy.c but the man page for the > > > rl driver only mentions RealTek 8129/8139 and I'm not sure which > > > driver is built from rgephy.c. > > > > > > Am I going to have problems if I get a motherboard with one of > > > these NIC's? > > > > It's a bit confusing, because there are product numbers associated > > with NICs, and with different individual component chipsets, and > > some > > Correct. Identifying exact model number is the one of hardest thing > in Realtek controllers. I think RTL8211CL or 8201EL are not MAC > controller but the PHY model name. These PHY are supported by > rlphy(4) since they are not gigabit PHY(e.g. Fast Ethernet). I recently found someone with a motherboard with the same chipset in a Windows PC and was able to experiment with it by booting off a FreeBSD install CD to confirm that the RTL8211CL was recognised. So I went ahead and bought my new motherboard (Gigabyte GA-M68M-S2P) and things are working fine. According to the specs the RTL8211CL is Fast Ethernet, claiming 10/100/1000 Mb/sec. I'm only using 100Mb/sec so can't confirm the 1000Mb capability. In case the information is of use to anyone, here's an extract from dmesg: nfe0: port 0xec00-0xec07 mem 0xfe02d000-0xfe02dfff irq 20 at device 7.0 on pci0 miibus0: on nfe0 rgephy0: PHY 3 on miibus0 rgephy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-FDX, auto nfe0: Ethernet address: 6c:f0:49:9e:88:97 nfe0: [FILTER] ... and pciconf -lv nfe0@pci0:0:7:0: class=0x068000 card=0xe0001458 chip=0x03ef10de rev=0xa2 hdr=0x00 vendor = 'NVIDIA Corporation' device = 'Nvidia Networking Card (nForce 405)' class = bridge -- Mike Clarke