386/486 experiences with WD8003E ethernet cards

[david nugent]

I'm interested in hearing of any experiences (good or bad) people have
had with WD800E ethernet cards.

Over the last few months, I've been installing these in Unix boxes of
various flavours, mainly 25MHZ and below.  However, with one 386/33
model and, more recently, a Compaq 486, I've found them very
unreliable - in fact, downright troublesome.

With the 386/33 (a Micronic board), we had the occasional "panic trap"
0x0000000E.  It was annoying, but only occasionally.  The machine ran
Interactive Unix 2.0.2, subsequently upgraded to 2.2.  Same problems -
though slowing down the bus speed seems to have solved that problem -
or at least reduced it's effect to almost negligable.  The TCP/IP
installed was also Interactive's.

With the Compaq, we are using SCO Unix/386, with SCO's TCP/IP 1.1.1.
EXACTLY the same problem - kernel panic traps.  This time, it
occurs reliably within 20 seconds of attempting any traffic across
the net (probably related to a timeout?).  After a frustrating hour
of trying different card configurations (all the same results), we
ended up replacing it with a 3COM 3C501, which worked first time,
every time.  Never seen a panic trap since.

BTW, the Compaq has an EISA bus.

Now, the question arises as to the cause.  Is this simply a hardware
problem on the WD8003 itself (we tried just about all of the models
available - including some manufactured 3 years ago, to the more 
recent ones with software configuration with no change in the symptoms)
or is it a bug in the (common?) driver related to running on a faster
bus. Or is it just a coincidence?

I use two of these cards myself and haven't had a problem; but
of course, I'm only running a 20MHZ 386.

  - david

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