hlison@bbn.com (Herb Lison) (10/04/88)
I'm attempting to use a 3Com 3C503 card in a PC-XT with SUN PC-NFS. There was a Western Digital card in there which worked fine, but now with the 3C503, the thing dies when it attempts to run PC-NFS. My guess is that there may be a conflict with DMA channels since the 3C503 uses DMA and the WD does not, however I can't figure out how to disable use of DMA on either the hardware or software. Anybody know this answer? Thanks in advance. Herb Lison
markh@altair.UUCP (Mark Hebets) (10/06/88)
In article <11815@emerald.BBN.COM>, hlison@bbn.com (Herb Lison) writes: > I'm attempting to use a 3Com 3C503 card in a PC-XT with SUN PC-NFS. [Stuff deleted.] > My guess is that > there may be a conflict with DMA channels since the 3C503 uses DMA and > the WD does not, however I can't figure out how to disable use of DMA > on either the hardware or software. Anybody know this answer? I have two suggestions: First, be SURE that shared memory is disabled on the board. We have never gotten a 503 to work with PC-NFS if shared memory was enabled. Second, you can configure more options in CONFIG.SYS than Sun tells you. In the EtherLink II Installation Guide, look on pages 5-6 through 5-9. You can change the DMA channel with a /d option (I haven't tried this) and you can force the driver to use port I/O instead of DMA with the /m option. We have used /m2 and /m4 to disable DMA on some clones. You have to add the /m option by hand, and it will get wiped out if you use NFSCONF to reconfigure the Ethernet interface. BTW, the /m option also works on the 501 card. -- Mark Hebets, Software Applications Department, Radian Corp. PO 201088, Austin, TX 78720 (512)-454-4797 sun!texsun!radian!markh ut-emx!juniper/
gany@TAURUS.BITNET (10/12/88)
We are using here at TAU the 3C501 Etherlink controllers. We have more then 10 PCs connected to our suns (2 sun-3 servers). We had no problems installing them and they work fine. We use DMA configuration "1" as described in the manual. What is most important is to check what interrupt request is configured on the board (and DMA ofcourse) and to make sure (absolutly sure) that no other device is using one of those, if it does - nothing will work. If you still have problems - i'll be glad to help. GANY@Math.Tau.Ac.IL