Fellow Sys Admins -
I have been offered 7 SMC 9332BDT 10/100 Mbps PCI ethernet cards
to use in my AlphaStations. I have found that the lastest version
of the firmware on the 3.7 CD is the only firmware that recognizes
the board. The AlphaStations I have are 4, 250 4/266's, 2, 400
4/233's and 2, 200 4/233's. We would like to be able to use these
boards instead of shelling out more money to buy DEC's cards if at
all possible. I installed one of the boards in one of the 250's
and when I check them at the console mode before booting I receive:
>>> sh dev
...
ewa0.0.0.12.0 ewb0 00:e0:29:05:68:3b
...
>>> sh config
...
PCI Bus
Bus 00 Slot 12: DECchip 21140 Network Controller ewb0.0.0.12.0 00:e0:29:05:68:3b
...
>>> set ewb0_mode Fast
Change mode to Fast
When the machine boots and it is set for 100 Mbps I receive:
Aug 21 08:30:07 syse1 vmunix: tu1: DECchip 21140-AA: Revision: 2.2
Aug 21 08:30:07 syse1 vmunix: tu1 at pci0 slot 12
Aug 21 08:30:07 syse1 vmunix: tu1: DEC Fast Ethernet Interface, hardware address: 00-E0-29-05-68-3B
Aug 21 08:30:07 syse1 vmunix: tu1: console mode: selecting UTP (100BaseT) port: no link
And if it is set for 10 Mbps I receive:
>>> set ewb0_mode Twisted-Pair
Change mode to Twisted-Pair
Aug 21 08:54:58 syse1 vmunix: tu1: DECchip 21140-AA: Revision: 2.2
Aug 21 08:54:58 syse1 vmunix: tu1 at pci0 slot 12
Aug 21 08:54:58 syse1 vmunix: tu1: DEC Fast Ethernet Interface, hardware address: 00-E0-29-05-68-3B
Aug 21 08:54:58 syse1 vmunix: tu1: console mode: selecting UTP (10BaseT) port
Trying the 100 Mbps at a different port I lose the no link at boot time.
At this point when the machine arrives at the commands to mount the NFS
filesystems, it hangs and finally says that rpc.lockd cannot contact the
status monitor and gives me port-mapper failure. Yeeha!
I can ping localhost and the machine. The last means that I can talk to
the board, but when I ping the NIS server and NFS machines, I get zilch.
It is as if it can talk to itself and not to the network.
/etc/rc.config is already set to use ewb0/tu1 so that is not the problem.
I received the following from SMC earlier today.
==> From General.TechSupport_at_smc.com Tue Aug 26 11:59:45 1997
==> To: klarsen_at_enterprise.afit.af.mil (Kristin (Kris) Larsen)
==> Message-Id: <852564FF.0058AF5E.00_at_mta.smc.com>
==> Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:01:54 -0400
==> Subject: Re: SMC 9332BDT 10/100 Mbps ethernet card
==>
==>
==> These cards use the DEC 21140-AC chipset. If the driver provided with DEC
==> Alpha supports this chipset, you can use these cards in your enviornment.
==>
==>
==> ========== On Tues, 26 Aug 1997 - klarsen wrote: ==========
==>
==> Sirs and Ladies -
==> I administer DEC AlphaStations for my customer and our
==> COMM group has some SMC 9332BDT 10/100 Mbps ethernet cards
==> that I am trying to use on our DEC AlphaStations to save
==> the cost of ordering DEC specific Etherworks NIC cards.
==> Do you know if it is possible to use these cards in these
==> machines? I know that they can be used successfully in
==> DEC's DECpc.
==>
==> This would save us money that we could use on other items.
==> Thank you.
==> Kris Larsen
==>
Surfing the archives of alpha-osf-managers I found a messages dated
28 April 1997 from Dirk Grumwald of foobar.cs.colorado.edu in which he
states in response to a user saying that any board with a Tulip chip
works.
"I'd just like to point out that this is not precisely correct.
Although the 21140 and related cards all report the same PCI vendor
and device ID, the chip provides a set of eight "general purpose I/O"
pins. On DEC boards, a specific configuration of these pins is
used (best as i cal tell) to sense the presence of a 100-Mbit carrier,
to kick an oscillator into 10/100Mbit and to signal the LED lights.
The assignment of pins is not specified in a standard, and some vendors
use a different mapping of pins to functions.
"In general, when ordering you should specify FE cards that are known
to work in Digital UNIX, or that are 'fully compatible' with the
DE500."
Does anyone know or have had success getting the SMC 9332BDT boards
working with Digital UNIX. As I said, I am the latest firmware and
running 4.0 or 4.0a on my machines.
Kris Larsen
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Kristin L. Larsen aka) "Hey you!"
System Administrator, AFIT/ENY
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio
ICES contractor
klarsen_at_afit.af.mil AFIT e-mail
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Received on Tue Aug 26 1997 - 21:51:06 NZST