MX(4)                     OpenBSD Programmer's Manual                    MX(4)

NAME
     mx - Macronix 98713/98715/98725 fast ethernet device driver

SYNOPSIS
     mx* at pci? dev ? function ?

DESCRIPTION
     The mx driver provides support for PCI ethernet adapters and embedded
     controllers based on the Macronix 98713, 98713A, 98715, 98715A and 98725
     fast ethernet controller chips. This includes the NDC Communications SO-
     HOware SFA110, the SVEC PN102-TX fast ethernet card, and various other
     adapters. The mx driver also supports the Lite-On 82c115 PNIC II chip,
     which is actually similiar in design to the Macronix 98715A with the ad-
     dition of wake on LAN support. Supported PNIC II cards include the
     LinkSys LNE100TX Version 2.

     The Macronix chips use bus master DMA and are designed to be DEC 'tulip'
     workalikes. The original 98713 had an MII bus for controlling an external
     PHY; however, the 98713A and up use an internal transceiver with NWAY
     support. The Macronix parts are advertised as being register compatible
     with the DEC 21x4x controllers. All of the Macronix controllers support
     both 10 and 100Mbps speeds in either full or half duplex.

     The mx 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
                           /etc/hostname.mxX file.

     10baseT/UTP           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 mx 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
     mx%d: couldn't map memory  A fatal initialization error has occurred.

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

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

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

     mx%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.

     mx%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 you
     see this message at boot time and the driver fails to attach the device
     as a network interface, you will have to perform second warm boot to have
     the device properly configured.

     Note that this condition only occurs when warm booting from another oper-
     ating system. If you power down your system prior to booting OpenBSD, the
     card should be configured correctly.

SEE ALSO
     arp(4),  netintro(4),  ifconfig(8)

     Macronix 98713/A, 98715/A and 98725 data sheets, http://www.macronix.com.

     Macronix 98713/A and 98715/A app notes, http://www.macronix.com.

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

AUTHOR
     The mx driver was written by Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu>.

BUGS
     The Macronix application notes claim that in order to put the chips in
     normal operation, the driver must write a certian magic number into the
     CSR16 register. The numbers are documented in the app notes, but the ex-
     act meaning of the bits is not.

     The 98713A seems to have a problem with 10Mbps full duplex mode.  The
     transmitter works but the receiver tends to produce many unexplained er-
     rors leading to very poor overall performance. The 98715A does not exhib-
     it this problem. All other modes on the 98713A seem to work correctly.

OpenBSD 2.6                    November 5, 1998                              2
