On Tue, 31 May 2005 15:46:14 +0200, Daniel de Kok <daniel@mindbender.nowhere> wrote:
>> eth0: VIA VT6105 Rhine-III
>> eth0: MII PHY
>
>Why not a good Intel card?

Maybe comes with Via chipset, on mobo? Waits for 'sempro' power up...

00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 78)
This one is on mobo in 'sempro' box. winxp (pro/100) --> to slack on via
Rhine-II 85% link saturation on large single file transfer (samba), usually
around 50% to other boxen.

In firewall box, for localnet, lspci:
00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 08)

modules.conf:
# 192.168.1.0/24
alias eth0 e100
# 192.168.2.0/24
#alias eth1 de4x5
# ADSL modem
alias eth1 eepro
options eepro io=0x280 irq=3
#

Old ISA Intel for modem half-duplex link. I used to run second localnet
segment with DE450 combo NIC, they pretty good too (but _not_ with tulip
driver). Disable COM2 in mobo BIOS to free up IRQ3 with older boxen.

Compare Intel & Realtek (another box has one of each):

00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 08)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation EtherExpress PRO/100+ Management Adapter
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 11
Memory at f4100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
I/O ports at 1000 [size=64]
Memory at f4000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

00:0f.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
Subsystem: AOPEN Inc.: Unknown device 0027
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10
I/O ports at 1400 [size=256]
Memory at f4101000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

The Intel has far larger interface memory 'footprint'. OS transfers
whole packets to/from it, whereas RTL-8139 transfers packets in little
pieces. The ubiquitous RTL-8139c probably gets a bad rep. due to poor
layouts on cheapie NICs, wrong PCI timing issues for MMIO, not so much
the chip itself.

I've not had 'lockup' problems with _quality_ RTL-8139c based NICs.

I used to accept 50% 'network utilization' displayed by winxp task
manager on a large file write (samba) to 'peetoo' (pII/350) with 8139c.
Dropped a 700MB file on link with pro/100, and I get 75% - 78% now.

>MII is the Media Independent Interface (IEE 802.3), and is a (serial) bus
>that is used to connect MACs to PHYs (physical media interfaces).

Always trips me some when I read PHY, abbreviation rather than acronym.

--Grant.