[Info-vax] DE500 and autonegotiation

[Steven Schweda]

> I have DE500 cards [...]

   If there is more than one possible "-xx" in a DE500-xx, then that
is
not a very detailed description of anything.  Or are we assuming that
all those card variants are equivalent?

> [...] (what I assume is) the same card [...]

   Why assume?  Why not examine or swap the cards?

   I suppose that we're also assuming that the VMS version involved is
unimportant.  And that all the other network hardware is equivalent.


> There is never any reason to have VMS boxes autonegotiate, as far as
> I've found out.

   Gigabit?  I can't remember ever having any trouble with
autonegotiation on my VMS systems.  Of course, all my DE500 cards have
been DE500-BA, which may be the last/best of the series (and my XP1000
systems now use DEGXA (-like) cards for their primary network
connections).

[...]
    OpenVMS (TM) Alpha Operating System, Version V8.4
    © Copyright 1976-2010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
[...]
%EWA0, Auto-negotiation mode set by console
%EWA0, Auto-negotiation (internal) starting
%EWB0, Auto-negotiation mode assumed set by console
%EWB0, Jumbo frames enabled per system parameter LAN_FLAGS bit 6
%EWB0, DEGXA-TB located in 64-bit, 33-mhz PCI slot
%EWB0, Device type is BCM5703C (UTP) Rev B0 (11000000)
%EWB0, Link up: 1000 mbit, full duplex, flow control (txrx)
[...]