Howdy!

I'm having a weird problem with a box I'm setting up. It's the SI54P
motherboard I asked about a while back.

I've got a Cyrix 686 P150+ (120 MHz core/60 MHz bus) running at 90 MHz as
the MB only supports 1.5x as a multiplier (it's an OLD MB!). I've also got
a NE2000 "compatable" ethernet card, which is the problem.

I'm trying to install the 12D snapshot, and am having little luck. After
seeing Bob Nestor's advice about the disklabel -r -w trick, I've now got a
good disklabel. But every time I try to ftp over the .tar.gz files from my
Mac IIsi, I get device timeouts on the ethernet card.

The card's configured to run jumperless, and I've tried 280 and 300 as
base I/O addresses. For 300, it comes up as ed2, 300 base, IRQ 10. For
280, it comes up as ed0, 280 base, IRQ 9 (the install doc says it should
be IRQ 2??).

Eitehr way, I can boot using the 12D install floppy (the SSTO stuff is
COOL!), ifconfig the card, and ping. I can also usually get an ftp session
to get as far as ls'ing a directory. But it hangs/gives lots of edX
timeouts when I transfer. I can't ^C the process, but I can ^Z it.

Any ideas?

As a side note (and possably relevant?) the 686 shows up as a 486. Didn't
12D support 686's? Or does the BIOS need to know it's a 686? The BIOS boot
messages speak of a 100 MHz pentium, and Norton 8's hardware checkout says
I've got a 214 MHz 486SX w/ a non-standard 387. ??

Also, every now and then, when the BIOS fires up, it hangs right after
probing the disk drives. It's trying to say something like "Automatically
A??? 0: Master OK" I think the A?? is activating, or some such.

So I guess I have two questions, possably interrelated. Any ideas on the
ethernet card, and could my BIOS be choking on the Cyrix? There's a
flashrom update for this board to an AWARD PnP BIOS (from April 1996), but
I'd rather not add PnP if I don't have to...

Anyone in the south bay have suggestions on where to get a P100 (other
than Fry's, which is always out, and NCA/Palo Alto which doesn't carry
them), and/or have an EPROM programmer which could burn me a copy of this
new BIOS?

Thanks!

Bill