>cgd wrote:
> 
> I've got a Dell Optiplex GX Pro 200, with the same problem.  I
> reported the problem in PR 4782.
> 
> For what it's worth, at the time I submitted that PR, the latest
> release of FreeBSD worked without a hitch on that hardware (including
> the ethernet).  I would assume that FreeBSD still does.  I managed to
> work around the problem by stealing an ethernet card from one of my
> other machines, but if i hadn't had a spare, i'd have lost (and would
> still be running FreeBSD on the box).

Andrew Gillham replies:

>Actually I was using '3c90xcfg' from the adapter disk.  Downloaded
>from 3com, since my Dell doesn't ship with floppies.  It allows you
>to change the media type between Auto-NWAY/100Mbs/10Mbs, but the
>current ep driver reports them all as media type "mii" I think.

The NetBSD driver doesn't really have support for 3c59x or 3c90x
variants with external onboard PHY chips. 

On these boards, the PHY chip really does show up as an `mii' in the
3com ASIC config registers.  the ep driver doesn't have complete
support for talking to external PHY chips.  The programmatic
interface to the onboard 3c59x/3c90x integrated PHY and the
external PHY chips is ... completely different.

We do have an `mii-bus' in the tree, but there are various caveats
with the design of that code. Currently neither the de driver nor the
ep driver use it.  In the short term perhaps someone could drop the
FreeBSD code into the ep driver framework.

The workaround is, of course, to use the 3Com utilties to set the
NVRAM state appropriately: either it to autosense, or hard-select a
specific interface on a PHY chip.