NAME
vx - 3Com EtherLink III / Fast EtherLink III (3c59x) Ethernet driver
SYNOPSIS
To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following line in your
kernel configuration file:
device vx
Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the
following line in loader.conf(5):
if_vx_load="YES"
DESCRIPTION
The vx driver provides support for the 3Com “Vortex” chipset.
The medium selection can be influenced by the following link flags to the
ifconfig(8) command:
link0 Use the AUI port.
link1 Use the BNC port.
link2 Use the UTP port.
HARDWARE
The vx driver supports the following cards:
· 3Com 3c590 EtherLink III PCI
· 3Com 3c592 EtherLink III EISA
· 3Com 3c595 Fast EtherLink III PCI in 10 Mbps mode
· 3Com 3c597 Fast EtherLink III EISA in 10 Mbps mode
DIAGNOSTICS
vx%d: not configured; kernel is built for only %d devices. There are not
enough devices in the kernel configuration file for the number of
adapters present in the system. Add devices to the configuration file,
rebuild the kernel, and reboot.
All other diagnostics indicate either a hardware problem or a bug in the
driver.
CAVEATS
Some early-revision 3c590 cards are defective and suffer from many
receive overruns, which cause lost packets. The author has attempted to
implement a test for it based on the information supplied by 3Com, but
the test resulted mostly in spurious warnings.
The performance of this driver is somewhat limited by the fact that it
uses only polled-mode I/O and does not make use of the bus-mastering
capability of the cards.
SEE ALSO
arp(4), netintro(4), ng_ether(4), ifconfig(8)
HISTORY
The vx device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 2.1. It was derived from
the ep driver, from which it inherits most of its limitations.
AUTHORS
The vx device driver and this manual page were written by Fred Gray
〈fgray@rice.edu〉, based on the work of Herb Peyerl and with the
assistance of numerous others.
BUGS
The vx driver is known not to reset the adapter correctly following a
warm boot on some systems.
The vx driver has not been exhaustively tested with all the models of
cards that it claims to support.