From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Jan 17 20:30:08 1995 Return-Path: questions-owner Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.9/8.6.6) id UAA08163 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 17 Jan 1995 20:30:08 -0800 Received: from ddg.com (EUNUCH.DDG.COM [199.183.109.237]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.9/8.6.6) with ESMTP id UAA08151 for ; Tue, 17 Jan 1995 20:30:06 -0800 Received: from [128.83.128.150] by ddg.com with SMTP (MailShare 1.0b8); Tue, 17 Jan 1995 22:29:47 -0600 X-Sender: awd@eunuch.ddg.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 22:29:53 -0600 To: questions@FreeBSD.org, hardware@FreeBSD.org From: awd@ddg.com (Andrew W. Donoho) Subject: ep Driver and the 3c509B-TPO Cc: awd@ddg.com, rkw Sender: questions-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Folks, I was given an old clunker of a 386 box so that I could add DNS service to my mostly Mac network. Not being an x86 expert, I purchased a 3Com ethernet card, 3c509B-TPO (TPO stands for twisted pair only). It was "supported" by FreeBSD 2.0, cheap ($99.00) and made by a reputable company. In any event, the "B" version is apparently "different" from the older 3c509 in three ways. 1. Larger Buffers (4K -> 8K) 2. Auto Media Sensing (It can tell if it is connected to a network). 3. "Plug and Play" capability (This can be disabled in software.) In any event, FreeBSD 2.0 does not function with this card. I think that the problem is probably the autosensing function since the card only activates its 10baseT transceiver during its diagnostic tests. FreeBSD can identify the card but not turn it on. The folks at 3com claim that it is very simple to support the auto sensing function and that it can be done to support both old and new cards with a single driver. Since this is the only 3c509 card that 3com is currently selling, I think it behooves us to support it. Again, I am not a unix expert and only have this one old clunker of a machine. But I'll help if I can... OTOH, 3Com will be happy to replace my "B" card with the earlier version which will work with FreeBSD. Any ideas on how to get this card working with FreeBSD 2.0? Andrew Donoho awd@ddg.com