From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Nov 28 06:14:53 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id GAA27974 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 28 Nov 1996 06:14:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from rachael.franken.de (rachael.franken.de [193.175.24.38]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id GAA27832 for ; Thu, 28 Nov 1996 06:07:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from pizza by rachael.franken.de with uucp (Smail3.1.29.1 #8) id m0vT77d-000oJNC; Thu, 28 Nov 96 15:07 MET Received: by pizza.franken.de (/\==/\ Smail3.1.28.1 #28.4) id ; Thu, 28 Nov 96 15:04 MET Received: by olive.franken.de (Smail3.1.29.1 #7) id m0vT75s-0004oLC; Thu, 28 Nov 96 15:05 MET Message-Id: MIME-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable In-Reply-To: <199611271824.MAA08100@main.gbdata.com> X-Nextstep-Mailer: Mail 3.3 (Enhance 1.1) Received: by NeXT.Mailer (1.118.2) From: Martin Bokaemper Date: Thu, 28 Nov 96 15:05:33 +0100 To: Gary Clark II Subject: Re: multiport ethernet cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.org References: <199611271824.MAA08100@main.gbdata.com> Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk 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.=20 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.=20 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,=20 but assigned the IRQs belonging to the 4 slots on the mainboard=20 to the four ethernet controllers. For my tests I put the cogent into the first slot and assigned=20 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. --=20