Broadcom 5719 Ethernet - Does it work yet?

[Dieter BSD]

www.broadcom.com/products/ethernet-connectivity/network-adapters/bcm5719-4p/
claims that FreeBSD works with the 5719, but
bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=171121
is still open, so the question of whether the 5719 works properly
(or at all?) with FreeBSD is clear as mud. :-(

Question 1: It appears that there were/are problems with both Dell
cards and HP cards. Is there something special about these cards
that could keep FreeBSD from working with them? Do they need to be
in Dell/HP systems or would they work in a vanilla machine?
(I'm thinking of getting one for a vanilla machine but only if it works.)
The 5719 and 5720 are the same except for 4 ports vs 2 ports, right?

Question 2:
The PR was opened in 2012, and is still open. Do FreeBSD and the
5719 play together yet? Is anyone working on it?

Question 3:
For those who do have it working, are there any problems?
For example, the Realtek 8111 has pauses, which can cause lost data,
even with TCP. See [1] And the AX88179 silently corrupts data,
even with TCP. See [2]

I thought you don't have any working network devices on your box so
I recommended to use USB based ethernet controller(i.e. axe(4)) to
get working network on the box.

The axe(4) man page lists several chips. Do any of these actually work
correctly with FreeBSD? I found that the AX88179 silently corrupts data
unless the data rate is very slow. For details, see [2]

Unfortunately I didn't get any answers/hints from Broadcom.

Still nothing from Broadcom? They claim it works with FreeBSD,
but they will not assist? Does FreeBSD have anyone who is good at
diplomaticly rattling cages?

[1] See the "Realtek re(4) driver" thread on hackers@
[2] See "AX88179 USB-to-Ethernet is slow and silently corrupts data"
on hackers@, drivers@, usb@, net@

[YongHyeon PYUN]

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[Peter G.]

Post by Dieter BSD
Question 1: It appears that there were/are problems with both Dell
cards and HP cards. Is there something special about these cards
that could keep FreeBSD from working with them? Do they need to be
in Dell/HP systems or would they work in a vanilla machine?
(I'm thinking of getting one for a vanilla machine but only if it works.)
The 5719 and 5720 are the same except for 4 ports vs 2 ports, right?

I have a few R-series Dell servers of the 12th. They all come with
onboard 5720. Ethernet works with bge(4), generic settings. Running
11.1-RELEASE on all those systems. "works" means here "they can run,
sure", but long term stability is, from my experience, let's say, less
than ideal. I've had one server losing network already twice within 3
months with polling, and another losing network once, for no apparent
reason, no polling. Already replaced the first one with intel i350-t2.
The other one is still running 5720, to be replaced with prolly i210.

If you want to buy new, don't. Get Intel i350 or i210 instead. Been
running i350-t2 on another system under constant high load, no problems
for over a year now.

--
PG