Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 22:53:42 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Ken Lui" <klui@cup.hp.com> Cc: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Network stalls for FreeBSD 4.2 Message-ID: <000501c08c1b$b7046ca0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.HPX.4.10.10101311001330.15573-100000@hpcuhe.cup.hp.com>
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I've had periodic experience with the AMD PC-net lan chipsets under both FreeBSD and other OS's. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Unlike a commercial OS (like NetWare) FreeBSD doesn't have a certification test for device drivers. Or rather, if you can figure out how to get commit rights to the source you can put in your favorite driver code. Mostly, the people that do install driver code do a good job, but we have had a few dogs over the years. (floppy controller tapedrives spring immediately to mind) The NE2100 chipset (and the later AMD PC-net chipset which was derived from it) have long facinated UNIX folks. The main reason is that the PC-net chipset is the same one that Sun used for years in the Sparcs. This mystical halo has followed the chipset into the PC arena. Unfortunately the implementations have been mainly disappointing. I don't know if it's a bugginess of the chipset, a failure by NIC manufacturers to follow electrical specs for the chipset, or bugs in the device driver code, but I've seen many broken hearts with this chipset line. Every few years AMD seems to hack on it a bit, or go around to the implementors and bang heads, and out pops a new version. It's sad because this chipset had much promise during it's birth - the lance chipset was one of the only ISA ones that did real live busmastering. But, I've also had filesystems ripped to shreads under OS/2 when a NE2100 card was plugged into the system, and I've seen many posts from people with problems with the later variants of this chipset, including the PCI ones. I think your far better off with a different NIC. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com > -----Original Message----- > From: Ken Lui [mailto:klui@cup.hp.com] > Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 10:07 AM > To: Ted Mittelstaedt > Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG > Subject: RE: Network stalls for FreeBSD 4.2 > > > On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > Disable the crappy PCNet adapter in the HP and put in > > a decent network card. > > Unfortunately, the adaptor works if I transfer from my Kayak to > HPUX 10.20 without any problems. Using HPUX as an intermediary > system I can transfer my files to my Asus FreeBSD 4.2 box with > no trouble. > > I did notice there was a lot of messages in the kernel stating > Heartbeat error -- SQE test failed > so I if'ed out the log() entry from if_lnc.c, but didn't remove > the call to the LNCSTATS() macro though. > > > Ken > -- > Ken Lui 3000 Hanover Street > klui@cup.hp.com Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA > Hewlett-Packard Company invent 1.650.236.5364 FAX 1.650.857.2085 > Views within may not be those of the Hewlett-Packard Company > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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