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Date:      Sat, 31 Jan 1998 08:55:30 +1030
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        Michael Reilly <michaelr@cisco.com>
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: 3com 3c589 PCMCIA ethernet card
Message-ID:  <19980131085530.07704@lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <00e501bd2dba$1c920320$c84447ab@keeska-mr.Cisco.Com>; from Michael Reilly on Fri, Jan 30, 1998 at 12:03:19PM -0800
References:  <00e501bd2dba$1c920320$c84447ab@keeska-mr.Cisco.Com>

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On Fri, Jan 30, 1998 at 12:03:19PM -0800, Michael Reilly wrote:
> I found a thread concerning 3com's 3c589 card and FreeBSD dating back to
> 1995.  I tried sending Email to the authors of the messages but haven't
> received any responses so I'll try here.
>
> I ran the diagnostics on my 3com 3c589 card to set the IRQ and I/O port (10,
> 0x300) and then booted FreeBSD.  The card was not found.  I then tried
> running the card's diagnostics again only to discover that the card now had
> an error in the NVRAM (CIS memory corrupt according to the diagnostics).
>
> The previous thread referenced a program, CHECKCIS.EXE which could be used
> to correct this problem but I cannot find that program.
>
> Can anyone tell me how to 1) correct the CIS memory corrupt problem and, 2)
> get this card to work under FreeBSD?

There are at least four different kinds of 3C589 (A, B, C and D).
Which do you have?

I had a lot of trouble configuring my 3C589C about 14 months ago.  It
turned out:

1.  The 3Com diagnostics are very buggy.  They won't run properly
    under DOS, only under a correctly configured Windows 95%.

2.  Depending on your PCI bridge chipset, the PAO software may or may
    not recognize the board.  My laptop has a non-Intel chipset, and
    it didn't.  I finally got it to work with the standard release.

I don't know how to fix corrupt CIS memory, but you should consider
whether this memory really is corrupt.  Maybe the diagnostics are
lying.  On the base of the diagnostic output (which was adequate), I
returned the first board, which was presumably OK, and got the same
claim for the second board.

Greg



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