Stange NIC Problem: DFE-538TX

[Matthew Emmerton]

> Hi there,
>
> I'm having an odd problem where this NIC (cheap-o, yes I know) doesn't
seem
> to work on FreeBSD correctly.  I have the same cards (even revision
models)
> in two win boxen and they work fine. 10baseT works but not 100baseT.
>
> With a normal NIC config, without explicitly setting the media to 10baseT,
> it will autosense as 100BaseT @ full-duplex, showing active.  However I
> can't ping any IP.  My switch indicates that the port is not active
either.
>
> If a 10baseT config, the switch will recognise that it's running at
> half-duplex and all seems well.
>
> I've read posts here that changes in stable may have affected this, but
I'm
> still running a 4.9-RELEASE system.
>
> If anyone has any hints to why this is happening please E-mail me.  Please
> CC directly since I'm not subscribed to this list.

Never, ever rely on the NIC and the switch to do proper auto-negotiation.
It's not just a FreeBSD thing -- Cisco has many papers outlining why
auto-negotiation doesn't work in practice.

See 'man ifconfig' for details on how to configure your card for a
particular media type upon bootup.

--
Matt Emmerton