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Netgear drivers - Tulip chipset - DEC 21140

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awh...@c031.aone.net.au

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Apr 5, 1998, 4:00:00 AM4/5/98
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Urgent help needed...


I have got some Netgear FX310 network cards that I want to use in
OS2 machines in a small network (4 systems).

Here is the problem:

1. The cards are Netgear FA310TX based on the "Tulip" chip from DEC
Chip is "DEC DC21140"

Drivers supplied by Netgear are only Novell Client for OS/2
and these drivers are just a xxxx.sys driver that needs
to be loaded in DOS window.

It seems that there is no support for OS/2 Native.

Does anyone know of any propper "ring 0" drivers
for these Tulip based cards ?


2. The following Network cards use the DEC 21140 chip:

a. Kingston KNE100TX 21140-AE

b. Acer ALN-310

c. Lantrnoix LFA-PT

d. SMC9332

e. DFE-500TX

f. Fiberline Fl-1960TX 100Mbit PCI

g. Paradise N100RJ Faster Ethernet 100Base-TX PCI Adapter

h. Kingston KNE100TX

Does anyone have drivers/know where to get drivers for any of the
above cards ?

Aparently Netgear are clueless in this field.

I need to solve my problem ASAP and am hoping for some help here
otherwise it will be back to Netgear (Bay Networks) and return all the
cards. 3Com is the alternative.....


My project:

3 OS/2 Warp 4 systems and one Linux Redhat 5.0 on a network
with multiple protocols (TCP/IP, Novell and Peer to Peer)

Later an other network will be attached with 8 more systems.

Can anyone help/advise on the above...

Any reply by E-Mail or here please.


Thanks in advance
Anthony

Scot Thompson

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Apr 5, 1998, 4:00:00 AM4/5/98
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On Sun, 05 Apr 1998 08:39:07 +1000, awh...@c031.aone.net.au wrote:

>1. The cards are Netgear FA310TX based on the "Tulip" chip from DEC
> Chip is "DEC DC21140"
>

> It seems that there is no support for OS/2 Native.

Actually, there is. There is a "generic" digital DC21x40 driver in the
MPTS setup. I went through the same thing until I found it.


Scot Thompson
/ sct...@primenet.com
/ sct...@asu.edu
/ http://www.primenet.com/~scthom

awh...@c031.aone.net.au

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Apr 6, 1998, 3:00:00 AM4/6/98
to Scot Thompson

On 5 Apr 1998 08:29:00 -0700, Scot Thompson wrote:

>On Sun, 05 Apr 1998 08:39:07 +1000, awh...@c031.aone.net.au wrote:
>
>>1. The cards are Netgear FA310TX based on the "Tulip" chip from DEC
>> Chip is "DEC DC21140"
>>
>> It seems that there is no support for OS/2 Native.
>
>Actually, there is. There is a "generic" digital DC21x40 driver in the
>MPTS setup. I went through the same thing until I found it.

Scot,

Thank you very much...you have saved me from having to return the cards.

Have you had luck using the card ?

Best regards
Anthony

Aaron Williams

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Apr 7, 1998, 3:00:00 AM4/7/98
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Stay away from DEC Tulip based cards. Besides tons of hardware bugs,
DEC really screwed up the driver architecture for their drivers. (I know,
I've seen it). Go with 3COM or Intel instead. You'll get much better
stability and performance.

-Aaron
--
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homepage at http://doofus.ml.org Java, OS/2 programming and general OS/2 info.
Anti-SPAM page, WEB Whois and spamtracking lessons at
http://doofus.ml.org/spam/ Lumber Cartel member #269 (TINLC) (TM)

awh...@c031.aone.net.au

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Apr 10, 1998, 3:00:00 AM4/10/98
to

On 07 Apr 1998 11:12:53 -0800, Aaron Williams wrote:

>Stay away from DEC Tulip based cards. Besides tons of hardware bugs,
>DEC really screwed up the driver architecture for their drivers. (I know,
>I've seen it). Go with 3COM or Intel instead. You'll get much better
>stability and performance.

Are you sure, they seem OK now that I have installed the drivers.

Can you document some of the problems found, we use them in good quality
motherboards from ASUS.

Anthony


Peter Stein

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Apr 10, 1998, 3:00:00 AM4/10/98
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In article <bmkoajwmvc...@news.primenet.com>,

Scot Thompson <sct...@primenet.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 05 Apr 1998 08:39:07 +1000, awh...@c031.aone.net.au wrote:
>
>>1. The cards are Netgear FA310TX based on the "Tulip" chip from DEC
>> Chip is "DEC DC21140"
>>
>> It seems that there is no support for OS/2 Native.
>
>Actually, there is. There is a "generic" digital DC21x40 driver in the
>MPTS setup. I went through the same thing until I found it.

Excellent. I'm on the verge of buying a NetGear 100BTX hub and a pair of
FA310TXs to network PCs running both OS2 Warp and also LINUX.

Are you folks running the NICs 10BT or 100BT under Warp?

Peter Stein
n...@xnet.com


Peter Stein

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Apr 10, 1998, 3:00:00 AM4/10/98
to

In article <6gk7l7$k03$1...@news.mel.aone.net.au>,

<awh...@c031.aone.net.au> wrote:
>On 07 Apr 1998 11:12:53 -0800, Aaron Williams wrote:
>
>>Stay away from DEC Tulip based cards. Besides tons of hardware bugs,
>>DEC really screwed up the driver architecture for their drivers. (I know,
>>I've seen it). Go with 3COM or Intel instead. You'll get much better
>>stability and performance.
>
>Are you sure, they seem OK now that I have installed the drivers.

They probably are just fine. I'm on the verge of buying a pair of FA310TXs
and a 100BTX hub and have monitored the LINUX networking group for some
time. The ratio of success/failure is much higher for Tulip based cards.
If I could afford it I'd probably buy Olicom NICs (which aren't Tulip,
but have a number of other things going for them) or Kingston, but
3COM and Intel are very poor value for the money. The FA310TX definitely
looks like the most bang for the buck.

>Can you document some of the problems found, we use them in good quality
>motherboards from ASUS.

And that's exactly where mine will be used also, a T2P4 rev. 3.1 to be precise.

Anthony, now that you have the FA310TXs working could you please answer a
couple of questions:

1. Are you running them 10BT or 100BT ?

2. Are you by any chance overclocking your PCs, i.e. do any have PCI frequencies
greater than 33 Mhz ? NetGear claims that their NICs are compatible with
systems that contain Cyrix CPUs (75 Mhz bus, 37.5 Mhz PCI), but at the same
time say they don't officially support PCI speeds greater than 33 Mhz. As
you already found out NetGear doesn't always give clear and concise answers.

Thanks for your help.

Peter Stein
n...@xnet.com


Scot Thompson

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Apr 14, 1998, 3:00:00 AM4/14/98
to

On 10 Apr 1998 17:21:10 -0500, Peter Stein wrote:

>Anthony, now that you have the FA310TXs working could you please answer a
>couple of questions:

Okay, I'm not Anthony, but...

>1. Are you running them 10BT or 100BT ?

10 Base T

>2. Are you by any chance overclocking your PCs, i.e. do any have PCI frequencies
> greater than 33 Mhz ? NetGear claims that their NICs are compatible with
> systems that contain Cyrix CPUs (75 Mhz bus, 37.5 Mhz PCI), but at the same
> time say they don't officially support PCI speeds greater than 33 Mhz. As
> you already found out NetGear doesn't always give clear and concise answers.

I run at 75 MHz on a K6. The cards run fine. I haven't been able to
test 83 MHz because my EDO memory is not fast enough.

Peter Stein

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Apr 14, 1998, 3:00:00 AM4/14/98
to

In article <rwjvwasvcw...@news.primenet.com>,

Scot Thompson <sct...@primenet.com> wrote:
>On 10 Apr 1998 17:21:10 -0500, Peter Stein wrote:
>
>>Anthony, now that you have the FA310TXs working could you please answer a
>>couple of questions:
>
>Okay, I'm not Anthony, but...
>
>>1. Are you running them 10BT or 100BT ?
>
>10 Base T
>
>>2. Are you by any chance overclocking your PCs, i.e. do any have PCI frequencies
>> greater than 33 Mhz ? NetGear claims that their NICs are compatible with
>> systems that contain Cyrix CPUs (75 Mhz bus, 37.5 Mhz PCI), but at the same
>> time say they don't officially support PCI speeds greater than 33 Mhz. As
>> you already found out NetGear doesn't always give clear and concise answers.
>
>I run at 75 MHz on a K6. The cards run fine. I haven't been able to
>test 83 MHz because my EDO memory is not fast enough.

Thanks for the info. Since they are relatively new NICs and function at 37.5 Mhz
there is some reason to be optimistic about operation at 41.5 Mhz.

Scot, looking at the FA310TX can you spot a clock crystal? If it's 45 or 60 Mhz
we're probably in good shape.

Peter Stein
n...@xnet.com


Scot Thompson

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Apr 16, 1998, 3:00:00 AM4/16/98
to

On 14 Apr 1998 10:18:27 -0500, Peter Stein wrote:

>Thanks for the info. Since they are relatively new NICs and function at 37.5 Mhz
>there is some reason to be optimistic about operation at 41.5 Mhz.
>
>Scot, looking at the FA310TX can you spot a clock crystal? If it's 45 or 60 Mhz
>we're probably in good shape.

I don't have one handy. If I had known, I could have looked when I
switched video cards last week. If I happen to have one of the cases
open, I'll take a look and let you know for sure. I'd be willing to
bet (but not much!) that it would work.

James A. de Haseth

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Apr 28, 1998, 3:00:00 AM4/28/98
to

In article <6gm60m$9...@typhoon.xnet.com>,

Peter Stein <n...@news.xnet.com> wrote:
>In article <6gk7l7$k03$1...@news.mel.aone.net.au>,
> <awh...@c031.aone.net.au> wrote:
>>On 07 Apr 1998 11:12:53 -0800, Aaron Williams wrote:
>>
>>>Stay away from DEC Tulip based cards. Besides tons of hardware bugs,
>>>DEC really screwed up the driver architecture for their drivers. (I know,
>>>I've seen it). Go with 3COM or Intel instead. You'll get much better
>>>stability and performance.
>>
>>Are you sure, they seem OK now that I have installed the drivers.
>
>They probably are just fine. I'm on the verge of buying a pair of FA310TXs
>and a 100BTX hub and have monitored the LINUX networking group for some
>time. The ratio of success/failure is much higher for Tulip based cards.
>If I could afford it I'd probably buy Olicom NICs (which aren't Tulip,
>but have a number of other things going for them) or Kingston, but
>3COM and Intel are very poor value for the money. The FA310TX definitely
>looks like the most bang for the buck.
>
I'm late to this thread, as I don't read news often, but I've had some
good luck and problems with the cards mentioned. I was running 3Com's
(3C905TX) for some time. They were "reasonably" solid, as long as you
had the right version of the driver (rev. 'k' as I recall). They did
fail on attempted upgrades to TCP/IP 4.1. They died miserably.

I now have the Kingston KNE100TX cards. Yes they do run under the DEC
21140 driver, but they do consume considerably more cpu cycles than
the 3Com cards. I have a cpu monitor running, Object Desktop Pro, and
all my processes combined with the 3Com cards ran ~3% (200 MHz P5).
With the Kingston cards it's up to ~12%! This seems incredible, but
I've verified it on several Warp builds.

As for TCP/IP 4.1, the DEC/Kingston combination _almost_ works. It runs
for about 1 hour, max., before all tcpip services stop. They can be
restarted, but that's not what I need, I need 24/7 support, which I have
under the old tcpip package. (If I wanted 1 hr run times, I'd switch to
NT -- sorry, couldn't resist the jibe.)

I really could use some of the TCP/IP 4.1 features, but so far I haven't found
a good card with stable drivers. Any comments or insights would be greatly
appreciated.

Many thanks,

Jim de Haseth
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
James A. de Haseth Email: deha...@dehsrv.chem.uga.edu
Department of Chemistry URL: http://dehsrv.chem.uga.edu
University of Georgia voice: +1-706-542-1968

42xxfall...@gmail.com

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Jun 27, 2020, 3:40:46 AM6/27/20
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is this thread seriously from 1998
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