two NICs of the same model

I'm having some problems installing two (ISA) NICs of the same model. The model name is 3Com 509B Etherlink III.

I've heard I need to pass on boot parametres like:
ethers=..., ..., ...

Do I need to do this for both cards? What are the parametres I need? How do I find out my IRQ value for my NICs ?

Thanks in advance!

many questions, one at a time:


yes, but the exact configuration depends on the specific NIC. you can find the documentation about it in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/net and (the path might differ on your distro) /usr/share/doc/howtos/hardware-howto and others.

yes. and for testing you should switch to using the module since it does not require rebooting every time then

see the files above

this is a hard one. there is afaik three types of ISA cards:
- hardware ressource setting, i.e. jumpers on the board
- software config (sometimes referred to as PNP which is wrong in this case!), i.e. there is a configuration program on your driver disk. you need good-old-DOS for using it (NOT dosemu)
- PNP, i.e. they support the "official" PNP protocol. use "isapnp" and "pnpdump" to configure them any setting you want to (limited only by your os/hardware restrictions!)

have phun!
M

[edit]
if i remember correctly, the 3c509 is a very bad card with flawed hardware, but maybe also i mix up the numbers... see the howtos / kernel docs
[/edit]

Thanks Hirsch
I'll probably have some time dealing with my NICs this weekend, and btw. I believe it's the 3c501 that is the bad card you're talking about. My 3c509 has been working (almost ) flawlessly on a couple of workstations for several years now

Thanks again