Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 11:42:09 -0800 From: Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net> To: Jonathan Michaels <jon@welearn.com.au> Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Poor Internet throughput on FreeBSD 3.3-RELEASE Message-ID: <19991230114209.A25831@orion.ac.hmc.edu> In-Reply-To: <19991230200018.A56975@phoenix.welearn.com.au>; from jon@welearn.com.au on Thu, Dec 30, 1999 at 08:00:20PM %2B1100 References: <19991230014304.w8sdz@Mail.Petersen.Net> <19991230200018.A56975@phoenix.welearn.com.au>
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On Thu, Dec 30, 1999 at 08:00:20PM +1100, Jonathan Michaels wrote:
> i;m not sure if i should be asking this question in -questions.
> i have a new (fro me) pentium pr 180 mhz motherboard, it is a
> supermicro p6sne. i have a pci based smc nic a smc9432tx -
> EtherPower II 10/100, it is the smc epic/100 83c170 seris.
>
> i've had this card (and teh computer) for a little over two
> years now, i purchased it new. after working for about 6
> months flawlessly in freebsd v2.2.7-release i did a fresh
> install of v2.2.8-release and teh nic stoped working, it just
> slowed down and finally wouldn't pass any traffic.
>
> now that i have got my v3.3-release cds i plan to resurect my
> x11 desktop machine i plan to build a 'graphics workstation'.
>
> recently i caught the tail end of a thread that said that the
> smc epic (83c170, in particular) based nics were no longer
> supported because they were to hard to make work and or build a
> driver for.
I haven't heard anything about support being discontinued. The system
I'm typing this on is running 3.4-RC (Release Canadate) with one of
those cards in it. Here's the dmesg output in question:
tx0: <SMC 83c170> rev 0x08 int a irq 10 on pci2.7.0
tx0: address 00:e0:29:27:50:95, type SMC9432TX, Auto-Neg 100Mbps FD
It works pretty well for me, but I've never really been happy with them.
The machines in our lab at work that came with them have all been
upgraded to Intel EtherExpress cards. The SMC cards seem to have
problems with autonegotiation and with marginal cabling and didn't work
well with longish CAT-3 runs even in 10Mbps half-duplex mode. I'd ditch
it, but since you don't want to do that I'd suggest making sure you are
close to your switch and that your cable is definatly good. I found
that sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't even with the same
setup.
-- Brooks
--
"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not
have, nor do they deserve, either one"
--Thomas Jefferson
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