Date: Thu, 28 Nov 96 15:05:33 +0100 From: Martin Bokaemper <mnbokaem@pizza.franken.de> To: Gary Clark II <gclarkii@main.gbdata.com> Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: multiport ethernet Message-ID: <m0vT75s-0004oLC@olive.franken.de> In-Reply-To: <199611271824.MAA08100@main.gbdata.com> References: <199611271824.MAA08100@main.gbdata.com>
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Hi > Has one used the Cogent Quartet lately? I need to produce a low cost > ethernet router here and this thing looks like it should give me the most > bang for the buck. I had a Cogent EM964BNC here last week for a few days of testing. The EM984BNC has 4 10Base2-Connectors (not 10BaseT!). It worked fast and without problems under FreeBSD. All the problems I had were with mechanics and the BIOS: - This is a long PCI-card. On my Gigabyte 586ATE/P only two of the four PCI-slots can take such a card, the others are blocked by the CPU-fan. - If you use normal T-connectors for 10Base2 you block the neighboring slot on the back with the cables. This is probably not a problem with 10BaseT (or 100BaseT). - Your BIOS has to support the PCI-PCI-Bridge that is on the card. My (not up-to-date) BIOS recognised the second bus, but assigned the IRQs belonging to the 4 slots on the mainboard to the four ethernet controllers. For my tests I put the cogent into the first slot and assigned the same IRQ to all the devices. I had no other devices on the PCI-Bus that needed an IRQ, so that worked. For real use make sure your BIOS can configure the cogent correctly with a shared interrupt without stealing IRQs from all the other slots! All these problems are not Cogent's fault, but you should be prepared to solve them. ciao, Martin. --
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