I had the same experience. I just spent 2 days messing with that damn thing.
Very frustrating. I just went to a card that works rtl8139 chip.. everyone
says that this card is cheap  but shit.. it works like a champ. Congrats to
the developer who wrote that driver.. I suspect that the 3c905bTX has a few
different versions and it is hard to keep up with all of them. I actually
had one of these cards working before on a nother machine in another place
without problems. Oh well....  I'm giving mine away to the first 'worthy'
person :)

cheers
Tony Hernandez


-----Original Message-----
From: Giles Lean <giles@nemeton.com.au>
To: port-i386@netbsd.org <port-i386@netbsd.org>; netbsd-help@netbsd.org
<netbsd-help@netbsd.org>
Date: Monday, January 31, 2000 5:03 AM
Subject: Re: 3com 3c905B


>
>On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 23:02:13 +1100  Giles Lean wrote:
>
>>        ex0 at pci0 dev 17 function 0: 3Com 3c905B-TX 10/100 Ethernet
>>        ex0: interrupting at irq 9
>>        ex0: MAC address 00:10:5a:1b:a3:b1
>>        exphy0 at ex0 phy 24: 3Com internal media interface
>>        exphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
>
>I spoke too soon; the card still doesn't work.  Now it determines
>correctly what it is connected to but then goes quiet (no lights) and
>ifconfig says 'no carrier'.
>
># ifconfig ex0
>ex0: flags=8822<BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
>        media: Ethernet autoselect (10baseT)
>        status: no carrier
>
>Playing with the media selection didn't help.  Not surprised; it was
>plugged into a 10baseT hub and had worked that much out.
>
>In a -current machine (100baseTX crossover cable to a Intel
>EtherExpress Pro, GENERIC kernel from the end of December):
>
>ex0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
> media: Ethernet autoselect
> status: no carrier
> ...
>
>I'd wonder if it was a faulty card except that it works for NT and
>Tony Hernandez has one, and there's an instance in the archives too:
>
>http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/2000/01/24/0005.html
>
>I gave up on making the card work 'in situ' and dragged it home; it is
>now in a crash and burn -current machine where it fails to work with
>100baseTX with a crossover cable.
>
>I will henceforth ignore the @#$! thing. :-)
>
>Regards,
>
>Giles
>
>
>