Re: IC Sockets On ethernet cards

[Robert L. Cochran]

Thank you for the comments, I learn something new every day. As a matter of fact I do want to build a cheap programmer because I want to learn how to build circuits. I just hope I'll have the time to experiment and fiddle (even when I moan and bellyache about some small difficulty).

Thanks a lot!

Bob Cochran



C Moss wrote:

On Mon, Sep 30, 2002 at 06:54:04PM -0400, Robert L. Cochran wrote:

I have 2 questions about ethernet devices.

1. What are the empty IC sockets on 10/100 PCI ethernet cards for?

As you have already seen in other responses this socket is for boot roms.
This would normally be used to boot the computer over the network.
This is useful for remote terminals, clusters etc.

2. And where would I obtain whatever plugs into them?

You can buy blank flash roms/eproms/eeproms and program them if you have a
programmer. Useful images can be found in a variety of places.
check out <http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/> and the Linux terminal server
project (LTSP).

Many cards can be used to program a flash chip themselves. Some cards come
with utilities. Most new card chipsets support this feature.
Donald Becker has some utilities to program flash on the cards.
<http://www.scyld.com/diag/>
I haven't gotten it to work yet, but I think that is due to the fact that
the motherboard I was testing on had an onboard NIC in addition to the card
I was trying to use as a programmer.

Theoretically you could use ethernet cards as a cheap general purpose flash
programmer. Very useful for linuxbios etc. ;-)
<http://www.acl.lanl.gov/linuxbios/index.html>

Chuck