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3C905TX PCI and Compex FreedomLINE16 ISA under DOS

Zare

Zare

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2015
Messages
381
Location
Croatia
Hello,

For Compex NIC I cannot find drivers anywhere. The only location is network-drivers dot com which seems to be fake, e.g. downloads their "driver update software installer" only. I'm not sure whether this is legit and their software will pull down the driver but I'll try that as a last resort in a Windows VM if I have to.

Secondly I have issues with my venerable 3Com card which used to work normally under DOS with Clarkson Packet Driver from 3Com EtherCD 5.4, on this same platform, it just stopped working. I cannot get it to attach normally with any combination of option switches. It hangs a bit at autodetecting media, then installs the driver but it's visible it fell down to 10MBit/s which is not correct. When I run Arachne normally DHCP does not work.

Under Windows 3.11 everything works and I normally download stuff from my home web server via Opera.
Under DOS configuration and diagnostic utility, all tests pass, everything works. No issues.

This used to work normally, but on a different "installation".

My end goal is to have normal downloads from my web server. Why I don't like Opera 3.62 for this is because UI hangs until it's downloaded, no status just frozen interface. I also installed first version of GetRight which also doesn't show status until it's done. As everything used to work under pure DOS, I used Arachne which downloaded files normally with status.
 
onre said:
What's the chip on the Compex?
Click to expand...

Thanks for replying onre.

The chip is Compex EN2K-988P (58061A1 533F)
The eprom is Compex FL16-PNP (NW/LM/LS, version 1.11d)

The labels on the PCB are

FreedomUNE16 PnP (REV A2)
S/N : 89213944
 
A while back I came across a 486 which had a Compex NIC installed, and there were some driver files for it which I grabbed off the HDD. Maybe these will help?
 

Attachments

  • COMPEX.ZIP
    48.2 KB · Views: 1
Chuck(G) said:
FWIW, Compex is still around https://compex.com.sg/, but the ftp hosting their drivers has gone the way of all things Internet--into the bit bucket. If you're desperate, perhaps they can help, but it's a lousy bet that they will.
Click to expand...

I reached to them as a last resort.
The network-drivers site wants me to download "Outbyte Download Manager". This software seems legit although there is no guarantee that it can be used to download this. On the other hand they have a file list from the archive. I'll try this Outbyte thing in a VM.
 
Unfortunately the zips are not archived, but you gave me some additional filenames to search. I've already found a defunct FTP, looking further...
 
You are right. I only checked the EXE files, and these have been archived... sorry. Unfortunately, I didn't find any information about alternative drivers for this card. Compex made NE2000 clones, but your card seems to not be one of those.
 
There is some worth to the exe's downloaded. Self extracting archives of diagnostic and firmware update tool, which I'll definitely run to check whether it can give more info about the card, and IBM LSP drivers for OS/2 and DOS.

LSP is "LAN support program", something I've never used, seems to be Ethernet library.

I can try to use these two to verify that the adapter is working.

The issue with Windows 3.11 "experience" is that the entire download gets buffered somewhere outside of application. Any application downloading just hangs there until it's done. If it's a large (100 MB) download, the machine will just silently freeze. It may not be a TCP/IP stack issue but driver issue. That's why I'm trying to enable DOS/Arachne with a packet driver.

I'm still perplexed why 3Com refuses to work under packet driver. I tried all permutations of command line switches and it simply does not work.
 
Zare said:
The issue with Windows 3.11 "experience" is that the entire download gets buffered somewhere outside of application. Any application downloading just hangs there until it's done. If it's a large (100 MB) download, the machine will just silently freeze. It may not be a TCP/IP stack issue but driver issue. That's why I'm trying to enable DOS/Arachne with a packet driver.
Click to expand...
It's unlikely to be the driver itself, but what specific 3com card are you having issues with? If it's an early design (3c501), do you have any other traffic on the network you are connecting to? Do you see the same issue when downloading data with other browsers, such as Netscape 4.08 or Internet Explorer 3.0 or 5.0?

Zare said:
I'm still perplexed why 3Com refuses to work under packet driver. I tried all permutations of command line switches and it simply does not work.
Click to expand...
Have you tried using different packet drivers? The one you are using may simply be broken for your specific card, try a different one?
For testing packet drivers, the mTCP suite is much better suited than Arachne.

Zare said:
All downloads from this dir work, "EN2000" is chip name, this is a good candidate
Click to expand...
Your never answered what chip your specific card has. It could be a generic NE2000 clone (in which case the diagnostic tool can probably just set a Non-PnP configuration and any NE2000 driver would work), or it could be something else. The Boot ROM contains strings such as "Compex FL16PNP is in FREEDOM mode" which doesn't inspire confidence in me.
 
Svenska said:
It's unlikely to be the driver itself, but what specific 3com card are you having issues with? If it's an early design (3c501), do you have any other traffic on the network you are connecting to? Do you see the same issue when downloading data with other browsers, such as Netscape 4.08 or Internet Explorer 3.0 or 5.0?
Click to expand...

3Com 3C905-TX Parallel Tasking 2 PCI , a very frequent and popular NIC
Yes, I think I tried several compatible browsers from WinWorld and settled down on Opera. They all exhibit same behaviour. Including GetRight download manager - this one is very telling because it's primary feature of the software to show download speed.

This stack is Windows for Workgroups 3.11, 3Com EtherCD 5.4 drivers, Win32s 1.30c runtime, Microsoft TCP/IP-32 3.5.

There is no broadcast traffic reaching this switch port apart from occasional ARP/DHCP but I don't even think the DOS system was active and connected in a same point of time when this traffic flowed.

Svenska said:
Have you tried using different packet drivers? The one you are using may simply be broken for your specific card, try a different one?
For testing packet drivers, the mTCP suite is much better suited than Arachne.
Click to expand...

I am not aware of different packet driver for 3C905 other than Clarkson Packet Driver.

See here, this is how it looks like -> https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=37855

But for that user, it's only dropped to 10Mbps. For me there is no packet access (in Arachne DHCP). At least I think so because the switch port LED is not active. I'll retest everything 3Com because I shuffled back and forth between these two NICs.

Thanks for the mTCP suite recommendation, I'll try it out.

Svenska said:
Your never answered what chip your specific card has. It could be a generic NE2000 clone (in which case the diagnostic tool can probably just set a Non-PnP configuration and any NE2000 driver would work), or it could be something else. The Boot ROM contains strings such as "Compex FL16PNP is in FREEDOM mode" which doesn't inspire confidence in me.
Click to expand...


Here I wrote all the physical lables from the adapter.
I'm willing to risk FREEDOM mode engaging and reporting my traffic to NSA for the sake of a working packet driver :D
 
Zare said:
3Com 3C905-TX Parallel Tasking 2 PCI , a very frequent and popular NIC
Click to expand...
A PCI adapter was surprising, that changes a lot of my assumptions. How fast is the PC?

Zare said:
Yes, I think I tried several compatible browsers from WinWorld and settled down on Opera. They all exhibit same behaviour. Including GetRight download manager - this one is very telling because it's primary feature of the software to show download speed.
Click to expand...
Hmm, that is surprising. If the NDIS driver is able to negotiate 100 Mbps, a storm of incoming packets can easily overwhelm a slower system, at least temporarily. Although TCP should definitely handle this. Can you downgrade the link to 10 Mbps and see if the hangs go away?

Zare said:
This stack is Windows for Workgroups 3.11, 3Com EtherCD 5.4 drivers, Win32s 1.30c runtime, Microsoft TCP/IP-32 3.5.
Click to expand...
I've only used the "tcp32b.exe" 32-bit stack, and don't know its version number, otherwise it looks very standard.
Trumpet Winsock could be worth testing, but that one only supports SLIP, PPP and Packet Drivers, not NDIS.

Zare said:
I am not aware of different packet driver for 3C905 other than Clarkson Packet Driver.
Click to expand...
It doesn't need to be a different packet driver, just trying different versions may be useful. I found drivers labelled as "EtherCD v5.1" at https://www.systemhaus-brandenburg.de/download/treiber/3com/3com.html but there may be other versions as well.

The VOGONS thread mentioned configuring the card manually using its configuration tool. Did you try?

Zare said:
Here I wrote all the physical lables from the adapter.
I'm willing to risk FREEDOM mode engaging and reporting my traffic to NSA for the sake of a working packet driver :D
Click to expand...
Haha. :-D

I missed that post, sorry. The chip name does sound like a standard NE2000 clone card. Since you are using a system with PCI slots, the BIOS most likely has ISA-PnP support and might print the card's configuration (I/O address and IRQ) at boot, before the "Starting MS-DOS..." message. Try pointing a regular NE2000 Packet Driver (http://crynwr.com/drivers/many-other-drivers.zip) at the physical resources, it may just work fine. If the driver prints out a decent-looking MAC address, that's a good indication.
 
Looks like we found the same driver version issue. And the solution to my problem :)

Packet driver from 5.1 CD works.
Btw. One of the main caveats with 5.4 is that config utility works flawlessly, all tests performed well, senses 100MBit media correctly, but the packet driver is useless. That completely threw me off the course. I must've used 5.1 on prior installation 2 years ago when I used Arachne normally to fetch files. So I didn't look into version history immediately.

mTCP DHCP and everything else works and its htget downloads the big file, but this tool doesn't have a progress indicator by itself. Usable but not ideal.
Arachne (V1.66) DHCP doesn't work, static config does. Yay. Shows the progress normally, but it is way slower than mTCP.

What's discouraging about the Compex card is that BIOS does have PnP, the card is reported in the POST screen, but the FreedomLine diag utility freezes the comp if you try to read the card configuration.
But since 3COMXPD works now I don't need it anymore.

This system is lightning for DOS, 166 MMX with SDRAM and AGP support. Which brings us to another issue, while AGP nVidia is in, 3Com works, while Hercules PCI is in, it doesn't. The configuration utility hangs and packet driver does not work. There doesn't seem to be any conflict on platform level. Hercules VGA works normally.
 
The latest version of Arachne is 1.99;GPL (https://www.glennmcc.org/arachne/), it might be a bit faster. That being said, I found mTCP to be extremely fast compared to ... about anyhing for DOS.

The Compex diagnostic utility may fail if the BIOS puts the card at a weird address, or it may attempt to configure the card itself (and crash the system while doing so). Flipping the "PnP OS" or "Plug-and-Play Support" BIOS option may help, as does cold-booting without any drivers.

Can't help you with your video issues, but you might want to open a new thread.
 
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