From 16aa435567ad6a82669864ba9c47ee534a03c296 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marty Connor Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:59:47 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] [3c90x] Remove src/drivers/3c90x.txt Most of the 3c90x.txt file is obsolete. The content from the file has been placed here: http://etherboot.org/wiki/appnotes/3c90x_issues --- src/drivers/net/3c90x.txt | 307 -------------------------------------- 1 file changed, 307 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 src/drivers/net/3c90x.txt diff --git a/src/drivers/net/3c90x.txt b/src/drivers/net/3c90x.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3d6746c5..00000000 --- a/src/drivers/net/3c90x.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,307 +0,0 @@ - - Instructions for use of the 3C90X driver for EtherBoot - - Original 3C905B support by: - Greg Beeley (Greg.Beeley@LightSys.org), - LightSys Technology Services, Inc. - February 11, 1999 - - Updates for 3C90X family by: - Steve Smith (steve.smith@juno.com) - October 1, 1999 - - Minor documentation updates by - Greg Beeley (Greg.Beeley@LightSys.org) - March 29, 2000 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -I OVERVIEW - - The 3c90X series ethernet cards are a group of high-performance busmaster - DMA cards from 3Com. This particular driver supports both the 3c90x and - the 3c90xB revision cards. 3C90xC family support has been tested to some - degree but not extensively. - - Here's the licensing information: - - This program Copyright (C) 1999 LightSys Technology Services, Inc. - Portions Copyright (C) 1999 Steve Smith. - - This program may be re-distributed in source or binary form, modified, - sold, or copied for any purpose, provided that the above copyright message - and this text are included with all source copies or derivative works, and - provided that the above copyright message and this text are included in the - documentation of any binary-only distributions. This program is - distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, without even the warranty of FITNESS FOR - A PARTICULAR PURPOSE or MERCHANTABILITY. Please read the associated - documentation "3c90x.txt" before compiling and using this driver. - - -II FLASH PROMS - - The 3c90xB cards, according to the 3Com documentation, only accept the - following flash memory chips: - - Atmel AT29C512 (64 kilobyte) - Atmel AT29C010 (128 kilobyte) - - The 3c90x cards, according to the 3Com documentation, accept the - following flash memory chips capacities: - - 64 kb (8 kB) - 128 kb (16 kB) - 256 kb (32 kB) and - 512 kb (64 kB) - - Atmel AT29C512 (64 kilobyte) chips are specifically listed for both - adapters, but flashing on the 3c905b cards would only be supported - through the Atmel parts. Any device, of the supported size, should - be supported when programmed by a dedicated PROM programmer (e.g. - not the card). - - To use this driver in such a PROM, visit Atmel's web site and download - their .PDF file containing a list of their distributors. Contact the - distributors for pricing information. The prices are quite reasonable - (about $3 US each for the 64 kB part), and are comparable to what one would - expect for similarly sized standard EPROMs. And, the flash chips are much - easier to work with, as they don't need to be UV-erased to be reprogrammed. - The 3C905B card actually provides a method to program the flash memory - while it is resident on board the card itself; if someone would like to - write a small DOS program to do the programming, I can provide the - information about the registers and so forth. - - A utility program, 3c90xutil, is provided with Etherboot in the 'contrib' - directory that allows for the on-board flashing of the ROM while Linux - is running. The program has been successfully used under Linux, but I - have heard problem reports of its use under FreeBSD. Anyone willing to - make it work under FreeBSD is more than welcome to do so! - - You also have the option of using EPROM chips - the 3C905B-TX-NM has been - successfully tested with 27C256 (32kB) and 27C512 (64kB) chips with a - specified access time of 100ns and faster. - - -III GENERAL USE - - Normally, the basic procedure for using this driver is as follows: - - 1. Run the 3c90xcfg program on the driver diskette to enable the - boot PROM and set it to 64k or 128k, as appropriate. - 2. Build the appropriate 3c90x.fd0 or 3c90x.fd0 floppy image with - possibly the value CFG_3C90X_XCVR defined to the transceiver type that - you want to use (i.e., 10/100 rj45, AUI, coax, MII). - 3. Run the floppy image on the PC to be network booted, to get - it configured, and to verify that it will boot properly. - 4. Build the 3c90x.rom or 3c90x.lzrom PROM image and program - it into the flash or EPROM memory chip. - 5. Put the PROM in the ethernet card, boot and enable 'boot from - network first' in the system BIOS, save and reboot. - - Here are some issues to be aware of: - - 1. If you experience crashes or different behaviour when using the - boot PROM, add the setting CFG_3C90X_BOOTROM_FIX and go through the - steps 2-5 above. This works around a bug in some 3c905B cards (see - below), but has some side-effects which may not be desirable. - Please note that you have to boot off a floppy (not PROM!) once for - this fix to take effect. - 2. The possible need to manually set the CFG_3C90X_XCVR value to - configure the transceiver type. Values are listed below. - 3. The possible need to define CFG_3C90X_PRESERVE_XCVR for use in - operating systems that don't intelligently determine the - transceiver type. - - Some things that are on the 'To-Do' list, perhaps for me, but perhaps - for any other volunteers out there: - - 1. Extend the driver to fully implement the auto-select - algorithm if the card has multiple media ports. - 2. Fix any bugs in the code .... - 3. Extend the driver to support the 3c905c revision cards - "officially". Right now, the support has been primarily empirical - and not based on 3c905C documentation. - - Now for the details.... - - This driver has been tested on roughly 300 systems. The main two - configuration issues to contend with are: - - 1. Ensure that PCI Busmastering is enabled for the adapter (configured - in the CMOS setup) - 2. Some systems don't work properly with the adapter when plug and - play OS is enabled; I always set it to "No" or "Disabled" -- this makes - it easier and really doesn't adversely affect anything. - - Roughly 95% of the systems worked when configured properly. A few - have issues with booting locally once the boot PROM has been installed - (this number has been less than 2%). Other configuration issues that - to check: - - 1. Newer BIOS's actually work correctly with the network boot order. - Set the network adapter first. Most older BIOS's automatically go to - the network boot PROM first. - 2. For systems where the adapter was already installed and is just - having the PROM installed, try setting the "reset configuration data" - to yes in the CMOS setup if the BIOS isn't seen at first. If your BIOS - doesn't have this option, remove the card, start the system, shut down, - install the card and restart (or switch to a different PCI slot). - 3. Make sure the CMOS security settings aren't preventing a boot. - - The 3c905B cards have a significant 'bug' that relates to the flash prom: - unless the card is set internally to the MII transceiver, it will only - read the first 8k of the PROM image. Don't ask why -- it seems really - obscure, but it has to do with the way they mux'd the address lines - from the PCI bus to the ROM. Unfortunately, most of us are not using - MII transceivers, and even the .lzrom image ends up being just a little - bit larger than 8k. Note that the workaround for this is disabled by - default, because the Windows NT 4.0 driver does not like it (no packets - are transmitted). - - So, the solution that I've used is to internally set the card's nvram - configuration to use MII when it boots. The 3c905b driver does this - automatically. This way, the 16k prom image can be loaded into memory, - and then the 3c905b driver can set the temporary configuration of the - card to an appropriate value, either configurable by the user or chosen - by the driver. - - To enable the 3c905B bugfix, which is necessary for these cards when - booting from the Flash ROM, define -DCFG_3C90X_BOOTROM_FIX when building, - create a floppy image and boot it once. - Thereafter, the card should accept the larger prom image. - - The driver should choose an appropriate transceiver on the card. However, - if it doesn't on your card or if you need to, for instance, set your - card to 10mbps when connected to an unmanaged 10/100 hub, you can specify - which transceiver you want to use. To do this, build the 3c905b.fd0 - image with -DCFG_3C90X_XCVR=x, where 'x' is one of the following - values: - - 0 10Base-T - 1 10mbps AUI - 3 10Base-2 (thinnet/coax) - 4 100Base-TX - 5 100Base-FX - 6 MII - 8 Auto-negotiation 10Base-T / 100Base-TX (usually the default) - 9 MII External MAC Mode - 255 Allow driver to choose an 'appropriate' media port. - - Then proceed from step 2 in the above 'general use' instructions. The - .rom image can be built with CFG_3C90X_XCVR set to a value, but you - normally don't want to do this, since it is easier to change the - transceiver type by rebuilding a new floppy, changing the BIOS to floppy - boot, booting, and then changing the BIOS back to network boot. If - CFG_3C90X_XCVR is not set in a particular build, it just uses the - current configuration (either its 'best guess' or whatever the stored - CFG_3C90X_XCVR value was from the last time it was set). - - [[ Note for the more technically inclined: The CFG_3C90X_XCVR value is - programmed into a register in the card's NVRAM that was reserved for - LanWorks PROM images to use. When the driver boots, the card comes - up in MII mode, and the driver checks the LanWorks register to find - out if the user specified a transceiver type. If it finds that - information, it uses that, otherwise it picks a transceiver that the - card has based on the 3c905b's MediaOptions register. This driver isn't - quite smart enough to always determine which media port is actually - _connected_; maybe someone else would like to take on that task (it - actually involves sending a self-directed packet and seeing if it - comes back. IF it does, that port is connected). ]] - - Another issue to keep in mind is that it is possible that some OS'es - might not be happy with the way I've handled the PROM-image hack with - setting MII mode on bootup. Linux 2.0.35 does not have this problem. - Behavior of other systems may vary. The 3com documentation specifically - says that, at least with the card that I have, the device driver in the - OS should auto-select the media port, so other drivers should work fine - with this 'hack'. However, if yours doesn't seem to, you can try defining - CFG_3C90X_PRESERVE_XCVR when building to cause Etherboot to keep the - working setting (that allowed the bootp/tftp process) across the eth_reset - operation. - - -IV FOR DEVELOPERS.... - - If you would like to fix/extend/etc. this driver, feel free to do so; just - be sure you can test the modified version on the 3c905B-TX cards that the - driver was originally designed for. This section of this document gives - some information that might be relevant to a programmer. - - A. Main Entry Point - - a3c90x_probe is the main entry point for this driver. It is referred - to in an array in 'config.c'. - - B. Other Important Functions - - The functions a3c90x_transmit, a3c90x_poll, a3c90x_reset, and - a3c90x_disable are static functions that EtherBoot finds out about - as a result of a3c90x_probe setting entries in the nic structure - for them. The EtherBoot framework does not use interrupts. It is - polled. All transmit and receive operations are initiated by the - etherboot framework, not by an interrupt or by the driver. - - C. Internal Functions - - The following functions are internal to the driver: - - a3c90x_internal_IssueCommand - sends a command to the 3c905b card. - a3c90x_internal_SetWindow - shifts between one of eight register - windows onboard the 3c90x. The bottom 16 bytes of the card's - I/O space are multiplexed among 128 bytes, only 16 of which are - visible at any one time. This SetWindow function selects one of - the eight sets. - a3c90x_internal_ReadEeprom - reads a word (16 bits) from the - card's onboard nvram. This is NOT the BIOS boot rom. This is - where the card stores such things as its hardware address. - a3c90x_internal_WriteEeprom - writes a word (16 bits) to the - card's nvram, and recomputes the eeprom checksum. - a3c90x_internal_WriteEepromWord - writes a word (16 bits) to the - card's nvram. Used by the above routine. - a3c90x_internal_WriteEepromWord - writes a word (16 bits) to the - card's nvram. Used by the above routine. - - D. Globals - - All global variables are inside a global structure named INF_3C90X. - So, wherever you see that structure referenced, you know the variable - is a global. Just keeps things a little neater. - - E. Enumerations - - There are quite a few enumerated type definitions for registers and - so forth, many for registers that I didn't even touch in the driver. - Register types start with 'reg', window numbers (for SetWindow) - start with 'win', and commands (for IssueCommand) start with 'cmd'. - Register offsets also include an indication in the name as to the - size of the register (_b = byte, _w = word, _l = long), and which - window the register is in, if it is windowed (0-7). - - F. Why the 'a3c90x' name? - - I had to come up with a letter at the beginning of all of the - identifiers, since 3com so conveniently had their name start with a - number. Another driver used 't' (for 'three'?); I chose 'a' for - no reason at all. - -Addendum by Jorge L. deLyra , 22Nov2000 re -working around the 3C905 hardware bug mentioned above: - -Use this floppy to fix any 3COM model 3C905B PCI 10/100 Ethernet cards -that fail to load and run the boot program the first time around. If -they have a "Lucent" rather than a "Broadcom" chipset these cards have -a configuration bug that causes a hang when trying to load the boot -program from the PROM, if you try to use them right out of the box. - -The boot program in this floppy is the file named 3c905b-tpo100.rom -from Etherboot version 4.6.10, compiled with the bugfix parameter - - CFG_3C90X_BOOTROM_FIX - -You have to take the chip off the card and boot the system once using -this floppy. Once loaded from the floppy, the boot program will access -the card and change some setting in it, correcting the problem. After -that you may use either this boot program or the normal one, compiled -without this bugfix parameter, to boot the machine from the PROM chip. - -[Any recent Etherboot version should do, not just 4.6.10 - Ed.]