[nycbug-talk] Looking for a good NIC

[Brian McGonigle]

On Mar 15, 2007, at 12:45 PM, Miles Nordin wrote:

>>>>>> "bm" == Brian McGonigle <brian.mcgonigle at gmail.com> writes:
>
>     bm> We've just started seeing the connectivity drop on 5 new
>     bm> DL360G5's (bce driver) we installed 2 weeks ago.
>
> these bge stories remind me of the tulip (tlp/dc) disaster after Intel
> bought the core from Digital and then started pimping it like a cheap
> crack whore to all those chip-of-the-month-club companies.  The
> original Digital parts were the best 100Mbit/s cores of the time and I
> think appeared secretly inside a lot of Cisco stuff.  but then the
> crappy cards flooded the market, the drivers bulged with workarounds,
> and the knockoff companies started coming and going so fast that, even
> if you found a decent knockoff, you couldn't get the same one six
> months later.  thus the Tulip reputation became meaningless, or worse.
>
> What about the Realtek 8169S gigabit chip that de Raadt likes so much?
>
> Even if it were not quite as performant as em/wm or bge, something
> that could avoid all this chip-stepping garbage would be worth it.
> Maybe if you get a decent chip that _starts_ its life made by a cheap
> knockoff company, it won't decay into crappyness as it matures.  We
> may as well embrace the inevitable future of hardware, especially if
> we're already using PeeCee crap anyway.
>
> Does anyone have some horror stories about re(4)?  or know where to
> get quad-8169S cards?  I think it is not PCIe, which may kill it for
> many people already.
>
> http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi? 
> query=re&apropos=0&sektion=4&manpath=OpenBSD 
> +Current&arch=i386&format=html
>
>      o   Buffalo LGY-PCI-GT (8169S)
>      o   Corega CG-LAPCIGT (8169S)
>      o   D-Link DGE-528T (8169S)
>      o   Gigabyte 7N400 Pro2 Integrated Gigabit Ethernet (8110S)
>      o   LevelOne GNC-0105T (8169S)
>      o   Linksys EG1032v3 (8169S)
>      o   Netgear GA311 (8169S)
>      o   Netgear GA511 PC Card (8169)
>      o   PLANEX COMMUNICATIONS Inc. GN-1200TC (8169S)
>      o   Surecom EP-320G-TX1 (8169S)
>      o   US Robotics USR997902 (8169S)
>
> ...of course in the real future we will all use
> HyperTransport-to-InfiniPath bridges as NICs, and debate the merits of
> various TCP-to-SCTP Translating Load Balancers. For future reference,
> this is pronounced TiSCToLB. :)
>
> but in the mean time, yeah, what cheap chip works?
> _______________________________________________

I'm waiting for a couple of D-Link DGE-560T's (nce) to arrive and  
start testing, but we might go with the more expense HP NC320T (bge)  
which we already have. I mentioned before that I can't get dhcp  
during the install with bge cards so I'm holding out for the D-Links.  
I'll share my experiences with the D-Link soon.

Thanks,
Brian