[Prism54-devel] [PATCH] prism54 snapshot fix for 2.6.11 & IRQ line too busy

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Wed, Mar 16, 2005 at 04:49:04PM +0100, Sebastian K?gler wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 March 2005 16:14, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > This should be no bug although I should fix the message and mention that
> > you most likely have a softmac card which is not supported. 3com started
> > selling the same card model with the same PCI ID and even with the same
> > FCC ID but with a different chipset. I've purchased a card from 3com to
> > confirm this and its true. Anyone know if this is legal? I'm looking
> > into it and haven't yet found info to tell me whether this is or not.
> 
> IANAL, but it's probably a good idea to add something along the lines of a 
> 
> === BIG FAT WARNING === 
> New cards are unlikely to work because of 3Com fooling their customers, so 
> don't buy this hardware!
> 
> to the website then. 

Other users have stated other vendors have done the same. I can attest
3com has done so because I have purchased two 3com cards, the first
worked, the second didn't. The second is brand-spanking new and I
believe it has a Revision "B" label.

> Otherwise it states that chances are ~90% that it just 
> works (tm), which does not hold true for newer cards. 

Yeah I have a disclaimer on top. It's been there for a while. See it?

> Ow, and yes, 3Com 
> pisses me off with that, as you might already have guessed. Rather than being 
> really glad that someone puts a lot of work in getting their hardware 
> supported, they show little to no respect to both, customers and driver 
> developers lying about the hardware they're selling. (In the meantime, 
> ndiswrapper lets me use the card, but that's clearly not my favorite 
> solution.)
> 
> Does anyone have a proper email address or telephone number to ask 3Com for 
> support? 

I have some contact info but have already dealt with them, even their
project manager and they were just not interested in supporting our
project.

I also created a trouble ticket with their support team asking them if
what they did was legal and seeing I can replace my card with the
earlier revision. I have also contacted the PCI-SIG and plan on seeing
what the FCC can tell me about their restrictions on providing FCC Ids
for cards. Through fcc.gov you can search for data on any FCC ID. I
search for the 3com device and found tons of test that proves the device
isn't causing major interference. In the docs provided too there is a
PDF file with the 3com card open, and in it you can see an ISL3880
chipset (Prism Frisbee). I am not sure if because they have provided
this they cannot change the chipset for the same FCC ID. I think it
would make sense not to as it is a different chipset.

Can anyone comment on this?

> > Basically -- you just have a softmac card. A similar patch will be
> > commmitted but later after netdev review on how to deal with 2.4
> > backporting.
> 
> Am I right guessing that we need 3Com to provide a working firmware, or even 
> more specs? I'm not a 100% sure of what it takes to get native support for my 
> card, or to be able to implement it.

Nope, they only support windows. They cannot provide specs due to their
agreement with Conexant.

	Luis

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