> 3Com 3c509 NICs are unreliable. Some work, others don't. They are also > known to be temperamental, in that the same card may perform well in > one computer but poorly in another. Add to that the fact that the > driver is buggy (search the mailing list archives!), and what you get > is a hardware/software combination I cannot in good faith recommend to > anyone. If you need something cheap, go for an SMC or Kingston based > NE2000 compatible ISA card. You'll probably get it cheaper than the > 3c509, and it will work better (and be pnp-configurable to boot).
Hmmmm.... I've deployed well over 3 dozen of the 3c509 in its various versions, with about a third on FreeBSD systems and I haven't seem the problems you are describing. They must work at some level because I know several universities that have used them exclusively, which means probably 100's of units per site. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message