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Re: smc ultra (8216) bootrom problems




>> Is the ROM fast enough?
>
>What does the speed of the rom need to be matched to? Things work ok for the
>8013's with the rest of the computer being identical.

The ROMs simply has to be fast enough that when the CPU accesses them it
doesn't drop bits. However hardware interfaces can differ across NICs
so it is possible (for example) that the 8013 adds wait states but the
8216 doesn't, so the 8216 needs a faster ROM.

Another possibility is that the 8126 returns signature bytes instead
of the contents of the ROM when parts of the ROM space are accessed, so
the checksum will fail if the ROM doesn't not match at those locations.
This sort of validation was used in the 3c503, which is why the makerom
program has a special option to handle this. This might explain why
someone else had the ezsetup program complain that the ROM was invalid.

(This is all speculation, you'd have to do some investigation.)
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