i82559 Chipset (?)

Manfred Young myoung@scaleable.com
Fri May 7 09:40:28 1999


I've been evaluating an Intel PRO/100+ Management adapter on our own
operating system. The only change that I had to make to our device driver
was modify the Rx FIFO threshold for certain motherboards. We've always used
the default setting of 8 since this worked fine on all machines with an
82557 or 82558. This value seems to work fine with the 82559 on Pentium II
based machines, however, we had to set the Rx FIFO threshold to 11 on
Pentium Pro machines (Intel R440FX-UP motherboard) to get reasonable
performance. Luckily the Linux driver has a MODULE_PARM to set this value.

----- Original Message -----
From: Jason P Schanuel <gobills@bellatlantic.net>
To: Donald Becker <becker@cesdis1.gsfc.nasa.gov>; Jason M . Felice
<jasonf@Baldwingroup.COM>
Cc: <linux-eepro100@beowulf.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 1999 5:59 PM
Subject: Re: i82559 Chipset (?)


> : On Thu, 6 May 1999, Jason M . Felice wrote:
> :
> : > We have some cards which were sold to us as Intel PRO/100+ cards
> (the online
> : > wholesaler we purchase from frequently drops important words from
> the name of
> : > products :(, we incorrectly figured them to be Intel EtherExpress
> cards. ).
> : >
> : > They have a chip labelled GD82559, which the driver doesn't support,
> it seems
> : > to support 82555, 82557, 82558.
> :
> : The driver should "just work" with the '559.  It's not supposed to be
> : substantially different than the '558.  (I don't have a datasheet
> : or sample card to confirm this statement.)
> :
> : Note: The '555 is a transceiver.  It's integrated onto the '558 and
> '559
> : chip.  Most '557 boards used the NatSemi DP83840 rather than Intel's
> part,
> : since the '840 was the only _working_ MII transceiver in the early
> days.
>
> I seems to just work for me. I have an SMP dual PII 300, Tyan 1832DL
> box.
>
> :
> : >  I assume this means:
> : > 1) it isn't a terrible deal to make the driver support it
> : > 4) It just _might_ work if I just enabled the driver to detect it ;)
> :
> : I believe this to be the case.
> :
> : > The exact name of the card is an Intel PRO/100+ Management Adapter.
> :
> : In some circles "Management" means mostly Wake-On-LAN to back up the
> machine
> : at night.
>
> It does have Wake-On-LAN. I have not connected it or enabled it in the
> BIOS though.
>
> :
> : > With some advice, I'm willing to do all the work involved; although
> I hope it
> : > will not be so involved as to obtain specs from Intel.
> :
> : What does /proc/pci report for the PCI Vendor and Device ID?  I had
> thought
> : that it was the same as the '557 and '558.
>
>   Bus  0, device  17, function  0:
>     Ethernet controller: Intel 82557 (rev 8).
>       Medium devsel.  Fast back-to-back capable.  IRQ 17.  Master
> Capable.  Latency=64.  Min Gnt=8.Max Lat=56.
>       Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xfebfd000 [0xfebfd000].
>       I/O at 0xef00 [0xef01].
>       Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xfea00000 [0xfea00000].
>
> :
> : Donald Becker   becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov
> : USRA-CESDIS, Center of Excellence in Space Data and Information
> Sciences.
> : Code 930.5, Goddard Space Flight Center,  Greenbelt, MD.  20771
> : 301-286-0882
> http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/people/becker/whoiam.html
> :
>
> Hope this helps,
>    Jason Schanuel
>