RealTek 8139D chipset, the re(4) driver, and FreeBSD 4.9

[John]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 10:31:21AM -0800, Bill Paul wrote:
> > This is going to be a bit convoluted.
> 
> [...]
> 
> This is _not_ going to be convoluted.

I'd like to agree with you, Paul, but the 8139D is not mentioned
in the version of the "rl" driver that I'm using, yet it works.
Furthermore, nomenclature like "8139C+" is common in refering
to "this version and later".  That doesn't happen to be the case
here, but it does happen.

I won't buy any more of these cards, but with the information I
had available to me at the time (and I had printed out the rl and
re man pages and taken with me), it seemed worth a try.  Trying to
find a good card at a good price is not a crime, even if you are
working on a tight time frame.  When I have time to shop around on
the internet and find cards based on the 8169S or the 8110S, I'll
do that - but I have found more than once that it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE
to find out what chipset a card uses without either looking at the
actual card or writing to someone to ask.  To compound my ill luck
the store I went to happened to be out of the other RealTek-based
card, so I couldn't even compare them.  Their literature simply
said "RealTek WOL chipset".

> The man page for the re(4) driver says it supports the 8139C+ chip.
> Not the 8139. Not the 8139A. Not the 8139B. Not the 8139C. And not
> the 8139D either. You have come to the erroneous conclusion that
> the 8139D has the same features as the 8139C+ just because it looks
> like it's a newer chip rev. The manual page tells you _EXACTLY_ what
> chips it supports:

It wasn't an erroenous conclusion - it was a calculated risk.  I can
still afford to risk ten bucks.
-- 

John Lind
john at starfire.MN.ORG