Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 13:32:22 -0700 (PDT) From: wpaul@FreeBSD.ORG (Bill Paul) To: lzeng@perfisans.com (Li Zeng) Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Looking for RealTek 8139c+ based NIC Message-ID: <20030910203222.34FA816A4C0@hub.freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <01e301c37715$72f0ad20$677ba8c0@perfisans> from Li Zeng at "Sep 9, 2003 05:00:49 pm"
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> Hi , > > Realtek has phased out 8139C+, I'v found the Ethernet card using Realtek > 8169 chip. It's EN9230-32 (32-bit Gigabit Ethernet card). RealTek is likely to phase out this NIC shortly too. I have only found one commercial source of 8139C+ NICs, which is Alloy Computer Products in Australia: http://www.alloy.com.au/products/1439e.htm The sample NIC I have was sent to me by RealTek some months ago. I'm actually very annoyed with RealTek, board makers, and consumers for the almost non-existent availability of the 8139C+ on the retail market. According to RealTek, they tried to get board makers to buy it, but it costs $1 more than the older 8139 chips, so the board makers always go with the cheaper chip. The result is that the 8139C+ never really made it into the retail market, and hardly anyone even knows it exists. If it was me, I would much rather spend $1 more and get an 8139C+ NIC than an older 8139 NIC: the performance/feature benefit is more than worth it. It irritates me no end that RealTek finally came up with a 10/100 chip that makes up for all shortcomings of the 8139, and you can't buy it anyway. :< The existing 8169 gigE cards available now are based on a two chip design that uses RealTek's 8169 MAC and a Marvell 88E1000 PHY. I bought mine from www.mrtechus.com. You probably won't see these around for too much longer either, because RealTek has deprecated the 8169 chip in favor of the 8169S and 8110S single-chip MAC+PHY devices. According to my contacts at RealTek, the expectation is to have NICs with these chips selling retail for something in the neighborhood of $15. (The currently available 8169+88E1000 boards sell for $27.50.) I'm not sure if they're talking about U.S. or asian markets. We'll have to wait and see. The 8169, 8169S and 8110S all use the same programming API as the 8139C+, and all of them are better than the older 8139. I just received some sample 8169S cards this week and have started working on them. For the moment, they seem to work ok in 10/100 mode, but I'm still having trouble getting the PHY initialized properly so that it will establish a gigE link. I'm hoping to have this worked out soon. -Bill -- ============================================================================= -Bill Paul (510) 749-2329 | Senior Engineer, Master of Unix-Fu wpaul@windriver.com | Wind River Systems ============================================================================= "If stupidity were a handicap, you'd have the best parking spot." =============================================================================
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