Re: [Etherboot-users] Problem: 3C905C without a flash eprom!

[Peter L. <P.L...@sy...>]

> Has anyone encountered this situation before? Is there any other way out,
> except for PXE cascading? We looked but could find no utility in the 3COM
> site for writing the chip.  If it is a eeprom like the old chip it should
> be writable on a eeprom burner, but it is small and won't fit, and in any
> case it is soldered to the card. Maybe all 3C905C are like this while all
> 3C905CX have the flash chip?

These are (from memory) OEM cards, I think.

Do you regard using PXE as a serious problem? This was just the
situation which PXE chaining was designed to work round. It's ugly, I
agree: the clients take a little longer, though the main problem is some
extra dhcp server config, but once done there's not much difference; the
clients take a little longer. You have to set up each NIC to use PXE by
hand (hit Ctrl-Alt-B as they start up) since out of the box they default
to 3Com's own code.

EB configuration is identical, regardless of whether it was flashed, on
a floppy or pulled by PXE. As noted, you can avoid the problem if you
have a co-operative BIOS which allows you to flash an Etherboot and
ignore the INC.