From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Nov 13 21:34:36 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id VAA15046 for questions-outgoing; Wed, 13 Nov 1996 21:34:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from GndRsh.aac.dev.com (GndRsh.aac.dev.com [198.145.92.241]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA15013; Wed, 13 Nov 1996 21:34:17 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rgrimes@localhost) by GndRsh.aac.dev.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id VAA21146; Wed, 13 Nov 1996 21:33:12 -0800 (PST) From: "Rodney W. Grimes" Message-Id: <199611140533.VAA21146@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> Subject: Re: 3C900 - 3C590 - 3C595 - SMC and PCI ethernet cards ??? In-Reply-To: <9056.847939880@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at "Nov 13, 96 06:51:20 pm" To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 21:33:12 -0800 (PST) Cc: jas@flyingfox.COM, freebsd-questions@freefall.freebsd.org, mango@communique.net, hardware@freefall.freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL25 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > I'm disturbed by the recent reports of problems with these > > cards. I really need a stable, solid, PCI-based 10/100 Mbit > > Ethernet solution for FreeBSD. Is there anyone who can shed > > Well, before you get too worried about this, just let me point out > that *all* of our SMC and Compex DC21040 based cards at Walnut Creek > CDROM work flawlessly, and we've got something like 15-20 machines > using them at 100BTX and 10BT speeds. They *do* seem somewhat more > susceptible to bad cabling than most cards. I was seeing abnormally > high collision counts on my home network and was rather puzzled by it > until I thought to replace a terminator I suspected. No problems > since. > > I'm rather curious myself at this recent spate of reports - perhaps > SMC has done something hairbrained with their latest revision of > adaptors? Known fact, most of the vendors that I am dealing with on the DC21x4x based cards have _ALL_ done design revisions in the last few months. Some of these cards still work fine, others the cards are totally non-functional now under FreeBSD :-( Most of these changes involve either going from the DC21040 to the DC21041 chip and changing some other things (most of this should now be fixed by the recent update to the driver, I just haven't had time to dust off the dead product sitting on my shelf and start testing them, and it is a low priority issue for me since I have functional product in the KNE40BT cards using the DC21041 chip.) The bigger issue is the DC21140 based cards, they have also all been revised to use a new PHY/MII interface chip(s), and it seems even the latest version of the driver is not dealing with this fact :-(. > > It might also help if those larger shops who are having problems would > consider sending one of the failing cards to David Greenman - we can't > fix what we can't see. :-) I am not only willing to hand carry them over to David, I will pay him some reasonable fee to work on and fix the driver to support both the new versions of the cards from SMC (SMC9332BDT) and the D-Link DFE-500TX. If David does not have the time, that offer extends to Matt Thomas as well. (Except I'll have to FedX the cards to him :-)). The balls now in your court, I have made the offer of putting the hardware and money in your hands to get some of this fixed.... > Jordan -- Rod Grimes rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com Accurate Automation, Inc. Reliable computers for FreeBSD