NAME

       vx — 3Com EtherLink III / Fast EtherLink III (3c59x) Ethernet driver

SYNOPSIS

       To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following line in your kernel configuration file:

             device vx

       Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in loader.conf(5):

             if_vx_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

       The vx driver provides support for the 3Com “Vortex” chipset.

       The medium selection can be influenced by the following link flags to the ifconfig(8) command:

       link0   Use the AUI port.
       link1   Use the BNC port.
       link2   Use the UTP port.

HARDWARE

       The vx driver supports the following cards:

       •   3Com 3c590 EtherLink III PCI
       •   3Com 3c592 EtherLink III EISA
       •   3Com 3c595 Fast EtherLink III PCI in 10 Mbps mode
       •   3Com 3c597 Fast EtherLink III EISA in 10 Mbps mode

DIAGNOSTICS

       vx%d:  not  configured;  kernel is built for only %d devices.  There are not enough devices in the kernel
       configuration file for the number of adapters present in the system.  Add devices  to  the  configuration
       file, rebuild the kernel, and reboot.

       All other diagnostics indicate either a hardware problem or a bug in the driver.

SEE ALSO

       arp(4), netintro(4), ng_ether(4), ifconfig(8)

HISTORY

       The  vx  device  driver  first appeared in FreeBSD 2.1.  It was derived from the ep driver, from which it
       inherits most of its limitations.

AUTHORS

       The vx device driver and this manual page were written by Fred Gray <fgray@rice.edu>, based on  the  work
       of Herb Peyerl and with the assistance of numerous others.

CAVEATS

       Some  early-revision  3c590  cards  are defective and suffer from many receive overruns, which cause lost
       packets.  The author has attempted to implement a test for it based on the information supplied by  3Com,
       but the test resulted mostly in spurious warnings.

       The performance of this driver is somewhat limited by the fact that it uses only polled-mode I/O and does
       not make use of the bus-mastering capability of the cards.

BUGS

       The vx driver is known not to reset the adapter correctly following a warm boot on some systems.

       The vx driver has not been exhaustively tested with all the models of cards that it claims to support.

Debian                                            July 16, 2005                                            VX(4)