Re: RTL8139 and RTL8201

On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, James Mantell wrote:

> I was hoping someone could answer one of my burning questions... I have 
> a ROCKS cluster with CentOS 4.3 and I recently upgraded all of the 
> hardware on the nodes. The motherboard I chose was MSI K8NGM2-L with 
> onboard ethernet. The ethernet chip says RTL8201CL. I would like to know 
> if this chip uses the same driver as RTL8139 (8139too.c).

The rtl8201 is just a transceiver, not the NIC.  You'll need a driver that 
supports the NIC, which is likely a nVidia chipset with a new PCI ID on 
the Ethernet controller.

You'll need to find the PCI ID, then locate the proper driver and version.

In the Scyld cluster system we report this as part of the PXE boot 
sequence, and are in the process of implementing a system that 
automatically reports and updates the driver set.  Rocks isn't that 
sophisticated so you'll need to do it by hand and reinstall the cluster 
for each hardware change.

The reason for this hardware design is that the analog parts of a 
transceiver are much different than the digital parts of the rest of the 
system, so it's best to put them on a chip made using a different process.  
Transceivers have a standardized interface, so the motherboard designers 
picked the least expensive chip.  

> Currently, I 
> cannot PXE boot any of the nodes because of what appears to be a driver 
> issue (I was previously using an RTL8100BL chip without issue). I need 
> to find the right driver; forcedeth .30 doesn't work.
> 
> Does anyone have experience with the RTL8201 chip? I know this list is 
> for RTL8139, but I can't seem to find an answer anywhere.
> 
> Thanks,
> James
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Donald Becker				[email protected]
Scyld Software	 			Scyld Beowulf cluster systems
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