NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     vr - VIA Technologies VT3043 and VT86C100A Ethernet driver

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     vr* at pci? dev ? function ?

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     The vr driver provides support for PCI Ethernet adapters and
embedded
     controllers  based  on  the VIA Technologies VT3043 Rhine I,
VT86C100A Rhine
     II, and VT6105/VT6105M Rhine III  Fast  Ethernet  controller
chips.  This
     includes  the  D-Link  DFE530-TX and various other commodity
Fast Ethernet
     cards.

     The VIA Rhine chips use bus master DMA and have  a  software
interface designed
 to resemble that of the DEC 21x4x "tulip" chips.  The
major differences
 are that the receive filter in the Rhine  chips  is
much simpler
     and is programmed through registers rather than by downloading a special
     setup frame through the transmit DMA engine, and that transmit and receive
 DMA buffers must be longword aligned.  The Rhine chips
are meant to
     be interfaced with external physical layer  devices  via  an
MII bus.  They
     support  both  10  and 100Mbps speeds in either full or half
duplex.

     The vr driver supports the following media types:

     autoselect   Enable autoselection of the media type and  options.  The user
  can manually override the autoselected mode
by adding media
 options to the  appropriate  hostname.if(5)
file.

     10baseT       Set 10Mbps operation.  The mediaopt option can
also be used
                  to select  either  full-duplex  or  half-duplex
modes.

     100baseTX     Set  100Mbps  (Fast  Ethernet) operation.  The
mediaopt option
                  can also be used to select  either  full-duplex
or half-duplex
                  modes.

     The vr driver supports the following media options:

     full-duplex  Force full duplex operation.

     half-duplex  Force half duplex operation.

     Note that the 100baseTX media type is only available if supported by the
     adapter.  For more information on configuring  this  device,
see
     ifconfig(8).

DIAGNOSTICS    [Toc]    [Back]

     vr%d:  couldn't map memory  A fatal initialization error has
occurred.

     vr%d: couldn't map interrupt  A fatal  initialization  error
has occurred.

     vr%d: watchdog timeout  The device has stopped responding to
the network,
     or there is a problem with the network connection (cable).

     vr%d: no memory for rx list  The driver failed  to  allocate
an mbuf for
     the receiver ring.

     vr%d:  no  memory for tx list  The driver failed to allocate
an mbuf for
     the transmitter ring when allocating a pad  buffer  or  collapsing an mbuf
     chain into a cluster.

     vr%d:  chip is in D3 power state -- setting to D0  This message applies
     only to adapters which support power management.  Some operating systems
     place  the  controller in low power mode when shutting down,
and some PCI
     BIOSes fail to bring the chip out of this state before  configuring it.
     The  controller loses all of its PCI configuration in the D3
state, so if
     the BIOS does not set it back to full power mode in time, it
won't be
     able  to configure it correctly.  The driver tries to detect
this condition
 and bring the adapter  back  to  the  D0  (full  power)
state, but this
     may  not  be  enough  to return the driver to a fully operational condition.
     If this message appears at boot time and the driver fails to
attach the
     device  as a network interface, a second warm boot will have
to be performed
 to have the device properly configured.

     Note that this condition only occurs when warm booting  from
another operating
  system.  If the system is powered down prior to booting OpenBSD,
     the card should be configured correctly.

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     arp(4), ifmedia(4),  intro(4),  netintro(4),  pci(4),  hostname.if(5),
     ifconfig(8)

     The     VIA     Technologies     VT86C100A    data    sheet,
http://www.via.com.tw.

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     The vr device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 3.0.  OpenBSD
support
     first appeared in OpenBSD 2.5.

AUTHORS    [Toc]    [Back]

     The     vr    driver    was    written    by    Bill    Paul
<[email protected]>.

BUGS    [Toc]    [Back]

     The vr driver always copies transmit mbuf chains into  longword-aligned
     buffers  prior  to transmission in order to pacify the Rhine
chips.  If
     buffers are not aligned correctly, the chip will  round  the
supplied
     buffer  address  and  begin  DMAing from the wrong location.
This buffer
     copying impairs transmit performance on slower  systems  but
can't be
     avoided.   On faster machines (e.g., a Pentium II), the performance impact
     is much less noticeable.

OpenBSD     3.6                        November     22,      1998