[Etherboot-developers] 3c905c-tx-m weirdness

[David C. <da...@co...>]

So, I've been working on getting a functioning Etherboot ROM for the 3Com
3c905C-TX-M that would allow me to load a menu & then choose an image to
boot from there.  My last issue had been that I had a working ghost
multicast image that would work from floppy, however, after using
mknbi-dos on the floppy image & having Etherboot download the image,
netbind would fail to find the network card.  After posting to the list,
Marty Connor (who has been a great help through my endeavors, along with
the rest of the Etherboot community) suggested that I add a call to
a3c90x_reset(NULL) within the call to a3c90x_disable().  Unfortunately
this did not help my problem.  However, the interesting thing that I
wanted to share with the community is that commenting out everything
within the a3c90x_disable() function call allowed the ghost image to
detect the card & boot properly (I also set the compile flag
-DCFG_3C90X_PRESERVE_XCVR). I really have no idea why this worked,
and the solution still needs to undergo further testing (particularly with
other images than the ghost multicast, such as a linux rescue disk image).
But I wanted to share these results, in case anyone out there was facing a
similar issue & so that some of the developers of Etherboot with more
experience with the code than I could possibly look into this issue & see
what the truly appropriate (& working) thing to have the disable function
do would be.  Again, I would just like to thank the Etherboot community
for all of their help & I'm sure that I will have many more questions as I
continue to develop a production environment which will receive the same
courteous help from the Etherboot community.


Thanks again,

David Coulthart
da...@co...