Re: FA511 not passing much data

Donald Becker <[email protected]> writes:

> On 9 Jan 2003, Jarl Friis wrote:
> 
> A board reseller isn't required to have an ID, only the people making
> the PCI chips.  A PCI device must have an ID, and may optionally have a
> subsystem ID.
> 
> The board vendor typically programs the subsystem ID with their own
> values, although a few chips allow the configuration EEPROM to also
> override the chip's standard PCI ID.  The motivation to do this is to
> appear to have a unique product, for instance when the vendor doesn't
> want the customer to know that "$80 value" NIC is exactly the same a $6
> generic rtl8139 board.

Thank you *very* much for clearing these things up. I always wondered
how those numbers were intended to be used. Do you have any URL on
documents describing these usage information?

So in short one can think of the main PCIID as the hardware/chip
identifier ment for technicians (driver developers), whereas the
subsystem ID is for branding, marketing and value added resellers. Is
that correct?

> Actually, the vendor ID is more general than just PCI devices.  Many
> other devices (e.g. USB) now use a 16+16 bit Vendor/Device ID.  Much
> like the 2+22+24 bit IEEE station address, this kind of standardization
> is a very good thing.

I don't know anything about 2+22+24 bit IEEE station address, but it
seems good that the same 16+16 bit system is used for USB devices.

> No. The list that Linux uses was apparently user-submitted guesses.
> And once there is an entry, it is never validated.

I will mail the pci.ids maintainer about this issues and talk to him
about things. Thank you very much. The list is never validated, but it
is not too difficult to update with more correct information.

> > > There are several other Ethernet NIC chips in the Centuar/Comet series
> > > with 0x1317 ID, generally with the format [01]98[135] or 951?
> > 
> > I have added the entry 1385:511a on
> > http://pciids.sourceforge.net/iii/?i=13171985
> > Do you disagree on this?
> 
> The 1385:511a is the subsystem ID for the Netgear FA511, which should
> always use the 1317:1985 ADMtek Comet/Centaur chip.
> 
> This is similar to the 1385:f311 (subsystem ID) Netgear FA311 v1 board,
> which always uses the 100B:0020 (primary ID) National Semiconductor
> DP83815 chip.

Thank you very much for giving such a concrete example.
So what you are saying is that the entry for the main PCI ID 1317:1985
should actually be "Comet/Centaur chip" opposed to "Fast
Ethernet 10/100" as it is now, do I get this correct?
And in subsystem entry 1317:1985-1385:511a There should be "NETGEAR
FA511" and not "ADMtek AL985 Centaur-C [NETGEAR FA511]" as I have
submitted for now, correct?
Further the entry 100B:0020 should be "DP83815" opposed to "DP83815
(MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller" and 100B:0020-1385:f311 should be
"NETGEAR FA311" which is missing now.

Do you have any comments on the fact that the list currently contains
"FA311" for the main PCI ID entry 1385:f311 ? or is this yet another
users that have incorrectly entered a subsystem ID into a main ID's entry?

Jarl

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