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To: Dave Costantino <daver@chaos.tmok.com>
cc: questions@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: 3com 3c509 / SB16 PNP Problems.. 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 14 Jan 1997 03:39:17 EST."
             <199701140839.DAA01040@chaos.tmok.com> 
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 06:58:23 -0500
From: "Brian J. McGovern" <mcgovern@spoon.beta.com>
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The problem is in the Plug-n-Pray feature of the cards. I think I blame the
ep driver more than anything else.

I took a brief look at the driver (and, I admit, i'm no driver wizard, but...),
and it appears that even with plug and play turned off on the the 3C509,
the driver still uses some of it to get a list of potential cards in the
system (hence the "... 3C5X9 found at ..." message), even when all of the 
hardware values are specified on the config line.

Unfortunately, it appears that, since the SB-PNP is also a PnP card,
it responds to the query for the 3Com card. The driver then checks it out,
determines its not really a 3Com 3C5X9 card, discards it, then
reissues the query (starting over, rather than after the SB card).

Now, I'm sure to get beat up by whoever is currently maintaining the ep driver
that this isn't exactly how it works, but this is just my opinion, looking
from the outside, and doing the little poking that I can.

Unfortunately, I never did find a fix. I eventually gave up, and put a 
3C59X (PCI) in the machine at home that was having a problem. Apparently,
the vx driver doesn't work this way. Unfortunately, I guess 3Com decided
to scrap the 3C59X's in favor of the 3C90X. The 3C59Xs are getting
a little scarce in the marketplace at this point. Fortunately, the 900's
are now supported (although I get unusual transciver messages when
configing the card, but they're just a minor annoyance).

Subsequently, I have, oh, 10-12 HP machines at work (Cisco Systems)
that will eventually be running FreeBSD. All of them had SB 32-PNPs in them 
(and their "built in" Ethernet card kinda looked like an lnc card to FreeBSD, 
but it doesn't work well). 3C905s for all! (gives me a good upgrade path to
100-Base T anyhow)

Sorry to respond with such bad news, but... "Thats the way it is".

	-Brian