leigh@dptechno.uucp (Leigh Stivers) (06/09/90)
I am looking for a good ethernet card that will work with Interactive I386 unix 2.0.2. We have tried the Western Digital EtherCard PLUS but it seems to have many problems and is not reliable enough. Please E-MAIL responses to uunet!dptechno!leigh Thanx, Leigh Stivers
larry@focsys.uucp (Larry Williamson) (06/11/90)
In article <473@dptechno.UUCP> Leigh Stivers writes:
I am looking for a good ethernet card that will work with
Interactive I386 unix 2.0.2. We have tried the Western Digital
EtherCard PLUS but it seems to have many problems and is not
reliable enough.
We've been using the ethercard plus for nearly more than a year and a
half, maybe nearly two. It has been a solid reliable card. It worked
with 1.0.6, 2.0.1 and 2.0.2.
I suggest you have some memory conflicts. Double check the strapping
of *all* your boards. Don't forget the disk controller.
-larrydavid@csource.OZ.AU (david nugent) (06/13/90)
In <LARRY.90Jun11094254@focsys.uucp> larry@focsys.uucp (Larry Williamson) writes: >In article <473@dptechno.UUCP> Leigh Stivers writes: > I am looking for a good ethernet card that will work with > Interactive I386 unix 2.0.2. We have tried the Western Digital > EtherCard PLUS but it seems to have many problems and is not > reliable enough. >We've been using the ethercard plus for nearly more than a year and a >half, maybe nearly two. It has been a solid reliable card. It worked >with 1.0.6, 2.0.1 and 2.0.2. My impression (gained from experience with ISC 2.0.2) is that the WD Ethercard plus is less reliable on faster 386's. They seem to work well at 25MHZ or less, but have occasional failures on a 33MHZ machine. As I said, this is an "impression", as the problems I've had have yet to be exhaustively diagnosed. It may be related to ISC's tcp-ip package, since it seems the problem seems to occur more when the software is pushed over and beyond it's limits. However, the problem we do get (which is a kernel 0x0000000E trap, which then reports "Parity error on add-on card.\nUnknown address") seems to occur in sufficient frequency only to be annoying, rather than one which causes any real hardship. This occurs despite having changed the Ethernet card 3 times now, and all other factors in the hardware setup have been eliminated. david -- Unique Computing Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Aust. david@csource.oz.au 3:632/348@fidonet 28:4100/1@signet
brando@uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu (06/14/90)
I obviously don't know of the experiences you have had with Ethernet cards and other "add-ons", but from my experience in building quite a few 386/486 boxes, I can tell you that the particular type of motherboard/BIOS combination can many times yield an "uncompatiable" system. For example: when I purchased my AMI motherboard and pieced together the rest of the box, everything advertised was correct; yes the machine would run DOS. After installing Interactive UNIX on the box, everything was less than operating. I started having fallouts (white lines across the screen) with my older video card, tape drive and mouse driver problems running X, and the like. I not "Joe Expert" on building 386 machines, nor am I qualified to call myself an expert on installing Unix on those machines, but I can tell you that many more factors affect a Unix box, than do a DOS machine. For one thing, I believe Unix is much more picky about interrupts. Newer versions of SCO and Interactive I believe support shareable interrupts, but older versions did not. Hope this helps a little so the airwaves weren't wasted... Brandon