Inspiron 1525 Hardware

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Fri, Sep 05, 2008 at 02:26:33AM -0700, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 05, 2008 at 03:06:42PM +0900, Pyun YongHyeon wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 04, 2008 at 10:54:23PM -0700, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> >  > On Fri, Sep 05, 2008 at 02:34:55PM +0900, Pyun YongHyeon wrote:
> >  > > On Thu, Sep 04, 2008 at 01:22:32PM -0500, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
> >  > >  > The http://people.freebsd.org/~yongari/msk/msk.88E8040.patch patch for 
> >  > >  > the 88E8040 simply doesn't work.  It is not because of lack of testing 
> >  > >  > (which I have performed for Pyun who wrote the patch), but apparently 
> >  > >  > because of lack of reliable documentation.  There is a driver for 
> >  > > 
> >  > > Another problem is lack of hardware. 88E8040 seems to be intialized
> >  > > after applying the patch but link establishment seem to fail. :-(
> > 
> >  > I can purchase and send you a Marvel 88E8040 NIC, assuming we can find a
> >  > PCI or PCIe card somewhere that uses one.  Otherwise, I could purchase a
> >  > motherboard which uses the IC and send that to you.
> >  > 
> > 
> > I failed to find a standalone PCI/PCIe NIC based on 88E8040
> > controller in local store.
> 
> I'll look around, and if I can't find anything, contact Marvell asking
> which of their clients use their 88E8040 in standalone PCI/PCIe NICs.
> 
> If push comes to shove, I'll pick up a motherboard that has the 88E8040
> on it and ship it to you free of cost.

I cannot find a single PCI/PCIe card that uses the 88E8040.  There do
not appear to be any consumer motherboards that use the 88E8040 either.
I haven't mailed Marvell yet, but I doubt they'd disclose to me a list
of their customers who purchase said chip.

The only product I can find on the market which uses this chip are a two
Dell laptops: the Inspiron 1525 and the XPS M1530.  The Inspiron 1525 is
approximately US$499, and the XPS M1530 is approximately US$1000.  Both
of these are quite expensive, so purchasing one solely for this project
would put a pretty large hole in my pocket.

Ironically, I just bought an Inspiron 1525 for a friend of mine's son as
a birthday gift, so I do have access to one indirectly, and can probably
borrow it for a day or two if need be.  It lacks a serial port, so I'd
have to buy a USB serial adapter for serial console if remote console
was needed.

All of this seems like a lot of work/hassle, when possibly someone with
one of these laptops could hook it up (wirelessly) and provide
Yong-Hyeon with remote + root access, while leaving it on/plugged in
for a few days.

Otherwise, if push comes to shove, I can ask my friend's son if I can
borrow the laptop for a weekend and provide Yong-Hyeon access to it.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |