appiah4 wrote on 2022-03-27, 22:05:

I have a 3Com 3C905, and the packet driver (3C90XPD.COM) loads successfully at boot. This is my CFG for running with a STATIC I […]
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I have a 3Com 3C905, and the packet driver (3C90XPD.COM) loads successfully at boot. This is my CFG for running with a STATIC IP:

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1PACKETINT 0x60
2IPADDR 192.168.1.23
3NETMASK 255.255.255.0
4GATEWAY 192.168.1.1
5NAMESERVER 192.168.1.35
6MTU 1500

Regardless of whatever mTCP software I call, the computer locks up. The cursor keeps flashing on screen but I can't even CTRL-ALT-DEL anymore, needs a hard reset. What could it be? The NIC works fine in Win95.

The more recent 3Com 3C905 packet packet drivers are broken. If your card is a 905b or older, try an older packet driver. I investigated whether the recent drivers is an easy fix and gave up being horrified by the quality of that code.

mkarcher wrote on 2022-03-27, 22:12:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-03-27, 22:05:

I have a 3Com 3C905, and the packet driver (3C90XPD.COM) loads successfully at boot. This is my CFG for running with a STATIC I […]
Show full quote

I have a 3Com 3C905, and the packet driver (3C90XPD.COM) loads successfully at boot. This is my CFG for running with a STATIC IP:

Copy code to clipboard

1PACKETINT 0x60
2IPADDR 192.168.1.23
3NETMASK 255.255.255.0
4GATEWAY 192.168.1.1
5NAMESERVER 192.168.1.35
6MTU 1500

Regardless of whatever mTCP software I call, the computer locks up. The cursor keeps flashing on screen but I can't even CTRL-ALT-DEL anymore, needs a hard reset. What could it be? The NIC works fine in Win95.

The more recent 3Com 3C905 packet packet drivers are broken. If your card is a 905b or older, try an older packet driver. I investigated whether the recent drivers is an easy fix and gave up being horrified by the quality of that code.

Can you recommend a driver version? What I am using is v5.2.6

EDIT: Packet driver v2.0c works flawlessly, thank you!

Thanks I might try this. I had some cases where it worked for the first few calls and then the driver wouldn't work anymore. So maybe I need to try an older driver.

Re: Getting a 3COM Fast Etherlink XL 10/100Mb TX (3C905-TX) Card to run in DOS?

when I did loads of testing of the 905 packet drivers, turning off Full Duplex solved my problems with dos packet drivers + mtp.

(I've ran these cards at full duplex without issues under linux and freebsd, so I know FD is not a problem outside of the combination of dos, packetdrivers and mtp)

Full duplex works with PD 2.0c

AFAIR 3C90XPD.COM 5.2.6 is necessary for 3C905C and 3C905CX
3C900 and 3C905B worked fine for me with 3C90XPD.COM 4.0d

mTCP author here ...

Just to be very clear, mTCP doesn't care if your card is full duplex or half duplex. But it is totally dependent on the packet driver.

To send a packet mTCP uses a software interrupt, which in DOS is just a fancy function call to something outside of your program. To receive a packet the packet driver "calls" mTCP to tell it to copy the packet to an mTCP buffer. The packet driver does all of the work of talking to the card to get it to actually send and receive packets. If something works under Windows or Linux but not under DOS, then the packet driver is probably to blame.

On a side note, I'm working on a web page with links to known good packet drivers and hardware combinations. If you'd like to contribute to make it easier for other people, please send me a ZIP file with the packet driver you are using, and related files (TXT files?), and what specific card you are using it with. I'll add it to the list and give you credit.

Mike

mbbrutman wrote on 2022-03-28, 16:09:

Just to be very clear, mTCP doesn't care if your card is full duplex or half duplex. But it is totally dependent on the packet driver.

my suspicion back in when I tested this was that the packet driver couldnt elegantly handle full duplex at 100mbit with IRQ's fast enough that my linux ftp server was throwing at it, and that 100mbit half duplex was better than downgrading to a 10mbit duplex link state.

mbbrutman wrote on 2022-03-28, 16:09:

Just to be very clear, mTCP doesn't care if your card is full duplex or half duplex. But it is totally dependent on the packet driver.

And just to support mbbrutman: The issues with the 3c905 packet driver and mTCP are clearly rooted in multiple bugs in the packet driver. mTCP would work perfectly fine if the packet driver worked fine. As one of the issues is different variables in the packet driver overwriting each other, the behaviour in specific situations is difficult to predict. Running certain tasks in specific order might put the driver in a state where it works by chance. One suggestion can be found in Re: Getting a 3COM Fast Etherlink XL 10/100Mb TX (3C905-TX) Card to run in DOS? . For 3c905C owners, it's worth a try.

DOS packet driver from 3c90x-ethercd_v5.4.zip package works on 3C905B-TX, including the NM version (no WoL). But it doesn't like 900 series cards at all. Will work with 900B but only on coax, hangs on receive with TP. On 900 non-B it'll not even send any data on the wire.

Begs the question, who tested that shit..

appiah4 wrote on 2022-03-28, 14:56:

Full duplex works with PD 2.0c

Can you provide a link to the packet driver version 2.0c?

I have a 3C905B-TX card and would like to try it, since I'm getting craptastic speeds with packet driver 5.2.6.

I should. I will post it on Friday.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-02-01, 17:55:

Can you provide a link to the packet driver version 2.0c?

I have a 3C905B-TX card and would like to try it, since I'm getting craptastic speeds with packet driver 5.2.6.

These are the drivers I got with a 3C900 card, the 3C90XPD.COM is 2.0c - it seems to support 905 as well, but I'm not sure about 905B
For 905B, it may be a good idea to try version 4.0d - hopefully easy to find, but if not, I have them somewhere...

Edit:

EtherDisk XL For The Fast EtherLink XL PCI
and EtherLink XL PCI NICs (3c90x Family)
Version 2.11
Copyright 1997 3Com Corporation. All rights reserved.

Grzyb wrote on 2023-02-01, 21:33:

These are the drivers I got with a 3C900 card, the 3C90XPD.COM is 2.0c - it seems to support 905 as well, but I'm not sure about 905B
For 905B, it may be a good idea to try version 4.0d - hopefully easy to find, but if not, I have them somewhere...

Thank you!

If you are able to find it, please post version 4.0d as well.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-02-01, 22:18:

If you are able to find it, please post version 4.0d as well.

Here you are:

EtherDisk XL For The Fast EtherLink XL PCI
and EtherLink XL PCI NICs (3c90x Family)
Version 4.01b
Copyright 1999 3Com Corporation. All rights reserved.

The PD version is 4.0d

Well, that saves me the trouble. Thanks 😁

Grzyb wrote on 2023-02-02, 04:53:

Here you are: […]
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Here you are:

EtherDisk XL For The Fast EtherLink XL PCI
and EtherLink XL PCI NICs (3c90x Family)
Version 4.01b
Copyright 1999 3Com Corporation. All rights reserved.

The PD version is 4.0d

Awesome, this packet driver version seems to be working best for my particular card. Thanks again!

On topic, I really appreciate the effort that went into mTCP. For me, its FTP server component provides the simplest, most hassle-free way for transferring files to my DOS machine over the network. Kudos to the author!