Good (?) Morning Fellow DU Sys Admins -
I posted a lengthy message (not included) to the group on 26 August
regarding SMC 9332BDT 10/100 Mbps ethernet cards that uses either
the Digital AA or XA ethernet chip. I tried and tried and tried to
get it to work with the kernel (DU4.0b) and I could not even though the
firmware recognized it. I received messages from SMC saying that if
it was recognized by the firmware that it should work but they could
not say for sure. They had tested older models on DEC machines and
they had worked, but they had not tested that specific board on a DEC
box. I finally gave up on the SMC's.
We went ahead and spent the money to order 6 DE500-XA from Digital.
That is what is advertised on the DEC website. I contacted our
regional salesperson to give us quotes on ordering the DE500-XA or
DE500-XB and he faxed it right over to us. (He's a great guy.) I
passed it on to our purchasor. Our purchasor was called by a DEC
salesperson from out of our area and told us he had no idea what our
salesperson was doing sending us information on the DE500-XA and
DE500-XB when it was not being sold anymore. He told our purchasor
to change our order to the DE500-BA board. (Maybe he said he was
changing it for us. I did not talk to him so I do not know the exact
details at this point.) We received the 6 DE500-BA boards ~1.5 weeks
ago.
I have worked with these boards off and on for that time between other
projects I must complete. I called DEC and their response was to load
the latest firmware I had (3.8) and see if that would work with the
DE500-BA board and if not, download version 3.9 of the firmware from DEC
and install it. I installed 3.8 and the SMC board was no longer recognized,
but neither was the DE500-BA board. That was a huge step backwards. I
downloaded and installed the 3.9 version of the firmware and the SMC board
still was no longer recognized but now the DE500-BA board was recognized.
A baby step forward.
A new problem had developed, the kernel would boot but only recognize
the tu0 (DE435 board) installed on the PCI socket board in slot 11. The
DE500-BA in PCI slot 12 was not recognized. I decided that maybe the
kernel had been corrupted and I rebuilt the kernel and rebooted. No luck.
I had tried in the meantime to help a user in Poland (tom_at_win.oss.wroc.pl
20 Sep 1997 12:43:01 Subject: [SUMMARY]: Network card problem)configure
his DE500-XA board in his machine and was ecstatic when he posted his
summary with information from Dr. Tom Blinn of DEC. I was pretty sure that
I had done everything exactly as Dr. Blinn had suggested to the person
from Poland, but I did it all again. Still no good.
I called DEC this morning to tell them I still could not use the new
ethernet cards in my machine then was dragged off to help a user. I
decided that since DEC usually takes 3 or 4 hours to respond to a call
that I would remove the new card and install our old DE435 card and see
if that would at least work.
Thank God it is recognized as tu1 and I can now access my old 10 Mbps network.
My problem is that I am to be switched over to 100 Mbps by the end of the
month and I have no cards that work for me. I will have no connectivity.
I am starting to sweat bullets, my users will be at a work stoppage.
I returned to my desk to a message from DEC two minutes after I left.
The lady kept talking and at the end she said, "If you really have the
DE500-BA boards, that is, Baker Albert, and you are running 4.0b, these
boards will not work. The DE500-BA boards are not supported until version
4.0d as in delta of the operating system."
I was flabbergasted! Not only am I running at 4.0b, but I have not even
received version 4.0c of the OS! Now I have to "wait" until version 4.0d
to use these cards?!?!?!?! That is preposterous! My guess is that version
4.0d will probably still come out after 4.0c and that I will need to wait
until January to receive 4.0d.
My users can not wait over 5 months to return to work. They are grumbling
enough that I will be on maternity leave for my first child in December,
January and February, but now to not be able to work from October till I
return to work in March is ridiculous.
So, the moral of this story is, do not let a DEC salesperson talk you
into buying the DE500-BA boards until after DU 4.0d is available. Since
we work for a government site, we are starting actions to correct this.
DEC should not sell hardware that will not be supported until a much
later version of the OS. It is waste of anyone's time and money.
Kris Larsen
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Kristin L. Larsen aka) "Hey you!"
System Administrator, AFIT/ENY
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio
ICES contractor
the opinions in this message are my own and are born out of exterme tiredness
due to pregnancy and extreme frustration due to a salesperson at DEC
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Received on Tue Sep 23 1997 - 17:36:10 NZST