Re: i386 home firewall/router/nat bottleneck diagnostics?

[Matthias Scheler <tron%zhadum.org.uk@localhost>]

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 09:52:15PM +0100, Manuel Bouyer wrote:
> > I know, I know...you get what you pay for...but is the cost
> > difference really worth it in this case? Are there other
> > chipsets or manufacturers that behave well?
> 
> 3com 3c905c are good too. I don't know if there's still manufactured,
> but you can certainly find used ones for a few $

I have to disagree. They are actually worth than RealTek cards.
My friend's server kept locking up at intervals between a few hours
and a few weeks for several years. After exchanging almost all parts
we finally figured out that the 3c905 NIC caused PCI bus errors
and was responsible for all the problems. The machine is using a
rtk(4) based device (behind a 10Mb/s link) now and has been working
fine ever since. That doesn't mean that I would recommend using
rtk(4) but it is better than ex(4).

As Intel PCI gigabit cards (which are really nice) are probably an
overkill I would suggest to look for second hand SMC Etherpower II
PCI NICs (driven by epic(4)). But make sure they are really
Etherpower II and not Etherpower (driven by tlp(4)) or other SMC NICs
(driven by rtk(4)).

        Kind regards

-- 
Matthias Scheler                                  http://zhadum.org.uk/