xl(4)

NAME

xl - 3Com Etherlink XL and Fast Etherlink XL Ethernet device

driver

SYNOPSIS

To  compile this driver into the kernel, place the following
lines in your
kernel configuration file:
      device miibus
      device xl
Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot  time,
place the
following line in loader.conf(5):
      if_xl_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

The xl driver provides support for PCI Ethernet adapters and

embedded
controllers based on the 3Com "boomerang," "cyclone," "hur

ricane" and
"tornado" bus-master Etherlink XL chips.

The Etherlink XL chips support built-in 10baseT, 10base2 and

10base5
transceivers as well as an MII bus for externally attached

PHY
transceivers. The 3c905 series typically uses a National

Semiconductor
NS 83840A 10/100 PHY for 10/100 Mbps support in full or

half-duplex. The
3c905B adapters have built-in autonegotiation logic mapped

onto the MII
for compatibility with previous drivers. Fast Etherlink XL

adapters such
as the 3c905-TX and 3c905B-TX are capable of 10 or 100Mbps

data rates in
either full or half duplex and can be manually configured

for any supported mode or automatically negotiate the highest possible

mode with a
link partner.

The xl driver supports the following media types:

autoselect Enable autoselection of the media type

and options.

Note that this option is only avail

able with the
3c905 and 3c905B adapters with exter

nal PHYs or
built-in autonegotiation logic. For

3c900
adapters, the driver will choose the

mode specified
in the EEPROM. The user can change

this by adding
media options to the /etc/rc.conf

file.

10baseT/UTP Set 10Mbps operation. The mediaopt

option can also

be used to select either full-duplex

or half-duplex
modes.

100baseTX Set 100Mbps (Fast Ethernet) operation.

The

mediaopt option can also be used to

select either
full-duplex or half-duplex modes.

10base5/AUI Enable AUI transceiver (available only

on COMBO

cards).

10base2/BNC Enable BNC coax transceiver (available

only on

COMBO cards).

The xl driver supports the following media options:

full-duplex Force full duplex operation

half-duplex Force half duplex operation.

Note that the 100baseTX media type is only available if sup

ported by the
adapter. For more information on configuring this device,

see
ifconfig(8).

HARDWARE

The xl driver supports the following hardware:

+o 3Com 3c900-TPO
+o 3Com 3c900-COMBO
+o 3Com 3c905-TX
+o 3Com 3c905-T4
+o 3Com 3c900B-TPO
+o 3Com 3c900B-TPC
+o 3Com 3c900B-FL
+o 3Com 3c900B-COMBO
+o 3Com 3c905B-T4
+o 3Com 3c905B-TX
+o 3Com 3c905B-FX
+o 3Com 3c905B-COMBO
+o 3Com 3c905C-TX
+o 3Com 3c980, 3c980B, and 3c980C server adapters
+o 3Com 3cSOHO100-TX OfficeConnect adapters
+o 3Com 3c450 HomeConnect adapters
+o 3Com 3c555, 3c556 and 3c556B mini-PCI adapters
+o 3Com 3C3SH573BT, 3C575TX, 3CCFE575BT, 3CXFE575BT,

3CCFE575CT,

3CXFE575CT, 3CCFEM656, 3CCFEM656B, and 3CCFEM656C,

3CXFEM656,
3CXFEM656B, and 3CXFEM656C CardBus adapters

+o 3Com 3c905-TX, 3c905B-TX 3c905C-TX, 3c920B-EMB, and

3c920B-EMB-WNM

embedded adapters

Both the 3C656 family of CardBus cards and the 3C556 family

of MiniPCI
cards have a built-in proprietary modem. Neither the xl

driver nor any
other FreeBSD driver supports this modem.

DIAGNOSTICS

xl%d: couldn't map memory A fatal initialization error has

occurred.

xl%d: couldn't map interrupt A fatal initialization error

has occurred.

xl%d: device timeout The device has stopped responding to

the network,
or there is a problem with the network connection (cable).

xl%d: no memory for rx list The driver failed to allocate

an mbuf for
the receiver ring.

xl%d: no memory for tx list The driver failed to allocate

an mbuf for
the transmitter ring when allocating a pad buffer or col

lapsing an mbuf
chain into a cluster.

xl%d: command never completed! Some commands issued to the

3c90x ASIC
take time to complete: the driver is supposed to wait until

the 'command
in progress' bit in the status register clears before con

tinuing. In
rare instances, this bit may not clear. To avoid getting

caught in an
infinite wait loop, the driver only polls the bit for a fi

nite number of
times before giving up, at which point it issues this mes

sage. This message may be printed during driver initialization on slower

machines. If
you see this message but the driver continues to function

normally, the
message can probably be ignored.

xl%d: chip is in D3 power state -- setting to D0 This mes

sage applies
only to 3c905B adapters, which support power management.

Some operating
systems place the 3c905B in low power mode when shutting

down, and some
PCI BIOSes fail to bring the chip out of this state before

configuring
it. The 3c905B loses all of its PCI configuration in the D3

state, so if
the BIOS does not set it back to full power mode in time, it

will not be
able to configure it correctly. The driver tries to detect

this condition and bring the adapter back to the D0 (full power)

state, but this
may not be enough to return the driver to a fully opera

tional condition.
If you see this message at boot time and the driver fails to

attach the
device as a network interface, you will have to perform sec

ond warm boot
to have the device properly configured.

Note that this condition only occurs when warm booting from

another operating system. If you power down your system prior to boot

ing FreeBSD,
the card should be configured correctly.

xl%d: WARNING: no media options bits set in the media

options register!
This warning may appear when using the driver on some Dell

Latitude docking stations with built-in 3c905-TX adapters. For whatever

the reason,
the 'MII available' bit in the media options register on

this particular
equipment is not set, even though it should be (the 3c905-TX

always uses
an external PHY transceiver). The driver will attempt to

guess the
proper media type based on the PCI device ID word. The

driver makes a
lot of noise about this condition because the author consid

ers it a manufacturing defect.

SEE ALSO

arp(4), cardbus(4), miibus(4), netintro(4), ng_ether(4), pc

card(4),
polling(4), ifconfig(8)

HISTORY

The xl device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 3.0.

AUTHORS

The xl driver was written by Bill Paul

<wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu>.

BSD July 16, 2005

BSD