[vortex] Re: VP6 + 3c905 -- any working machines?

[Bogdan Costescu]

On Thu, 22 Feb 2001 kragen@pobox.com wrote:

> Maybe this explains why none of the five Dell Windows 2000
> workstations our company recently purchased work correctly with Linux

Most of the reports about these cards come from Dell computers owners...

> --- they all work fine, except that they can't seem to receive packets
> (except very occasionally).  We concluded that 3Com was manufacturing
> junk these days and ditched the cards in favor of Intel cards, which
> work fine.

Well, as I already wrote on this list, a short question on the relevant
network driver mailing list might help...

> Had the cards reported a different model number, I would have known
> they needed updated drivers, but it's too late for that now.  They
> looked identical to my working 3c905C cards on older machines in
> /proc/pci, and mii-diag didn't help me any.

Yes, that is what bothered us too when they appeared. Basically, the only
difference is the product code and manufacturing date which are only
available in the EEPROM, but were never used (not even reported) for older
cards because they wouldn't have any relevance. At least the 2.4 driver
prints now these fields which makes it easier to spot such cards, but this
is not, by any means, an automated process. mii-diag has nothing to do
with this problem; the CX cards also have a strange behaviour w.r.t. MII
transceiver probing, but this is less of an issue than the RxReset one.

Sincerely,

Bogdan Costescu

IWR - Interdisziplinaeres Zentrum fuer Wissenschaftliches Rechnen
Universitaet Heidelberg, INF 368, D-69120 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Telephone: +49 6221 54 8869, Telefax: +49 6221 54 8868
E-mail: Bogdan.Costescu@IWR.Uni-Heidelberg.De