8.1 xl + dual-speed Netgear hub = yoyo

[Freddie Cash]

On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 1:28 AM, Damien Fleuriot <ml at my.gd> wrote:

> On 10/21/11 5:00 PM, perryh at pluto.rain.com wrote:
> > I have an 8.1-RELEASE system with an xl on the mainboard:
> >
> >   xl0: <3Com 3c905C-TX Fast Etherlink XL> port 0xdc80-0xdcff mem
> 0xf8fffc00-0xf8fffc7f irq 16 at device 4.0 on pci2
> >   miibus0: <MII bus> on xl0
> >   xlphy0: <3c905C 10/100 internal PHY> PHY 24 on miibus0
> >   xlphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
> >   xl0: Ethernet address: 00:b0:d0:22:5a:14
> >   xl0: [ITHREAD]
> >
> > It has been working properly while connected to an old 10-BaseT hub,
> > but when I moved it to a (not as old) Netgear 10/100 dual-speed hub
> > the link started to yo-yo:
> >
>
> Pray tell, what's a "dual-speed hub" , marketing mumbo-jumbo ?
> If that's a hub that supports negotiation of different speeds (10 vs
> 100), then yes, I call that marketing mumbo-jumbo ;)
>
>
Go back to the days of hubs, and the first 10/100 Mbps hubs from just about
every manufacturer was labelled "dual-speed".  Meaning, it supported 10 Mbps
connections and 100 Mbps connection (dual meaning two).  ;)

3Com OfficeConnect hubs are all labelled "dual-speed".

With the advent of switches, the "dual-speed" moniker was pretty much
universally dropped in favour of just listing the speeds it supported
(10/100, 10/100/1000, etc).

Maybe it's "marketing mumbo jumbo", but it was pretty universal for the
time.

-- 
Freddie Cash
fjwcash at gmail.com