Date: Tue, 14 Jan 97 21:44 CST From: uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.org (Frank Durda IV) To: sos@freebsd.org, giles@nemeton.com.au, freebsd-current@freefall.freebsd.org Cc: uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.org Subject: Re: SMC Elite Ultra in -current Message-ID: <m0vkMGq-000uXSC@nemesis.lonestar.org>
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[5]Is it possible that the cards get so screwed by something (probe, [5]>crash or whatever) that they can't brought back to live with [5]>the 'normal' EZSETUP. Maybe this can only be answered by SMC [5]>themselves? [6]No normally not, although the EEPROM (or whatever) can be filled [6]with garbage by accident. I must disagree. When I was with Tandy, around 1990 Western Digital started shipping a new revision of their boards with new setup floppies, but no one mentioned that you had to use the SETUP 1.6 floppy with the new boards and the SETUP 1.4 floppy with the old boards. If you used the old floppy on the new boards, it ruined them and there was NO field software fix. Same thing happened when SETUP 2.1 and the 8013 cards came along. People were wiping out brand new 8013 cards by accidentally starting old copies of SETUP left on their hard disks. Just starting the software was sufficient to nuke the card. Western Digital (and later SMC) were not real helpful on this and only grudgingly accepted the blown units under warranty. I still have a couple of 8003 and 8013 cards here that have had the EEPROM set into an "impossible" state and you can't bring the card back. On the 8013 cards, the setup program may appear to work but if you restart it, you will find the settings as before or the software will say it can't find any network cards. Once you get here, at least on the 8013 cards, you can use the hard strap settings and as long as the network address isn't also trashed. You will have to use the hard settings from that point on. If you have 8003 cards, the INIT strap doesn't help. If WD or SMC ever published something to reset all fields in the EEPROM, I am not aware of it. We used to send boxes of them back under warranty and new ones always came back, as though they couldn't fix it with software either. Frank Durda IV <uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.org>|"The Knights who say "LETNi" or uhclem%nemesis@rwsystr.nkn.net | demand... A SEGMENT REGISTER!!!" |"A what?" or ...letni!rwsys!nemesis!uhclem |"LETNi! LETNi! LETNi!" - 1983
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