Archive for the ‘English’ Category

Newer Entries »

Realtek network cards with VIA chipset !

Saturday, March 18th, 2006

At work, we have cheap network cards for tests.
From the last command, cards are announced to be classic Realtek RTL8139D chip.

Strange realtek card

But when I put in Linux 2.(4|6) systems, I discover curious lspci message :

Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6105 [Rhine-III] (rev 86)
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc.: Unknown device 0105

And with pci-id 1106:3106 (rev 86), I found on PCI IDs database the reference :

3106  VT6105 [Rhine-III]
1186 1403  DFE-530TX rev C

On Linux, this chipset seems to be a VIA Rhine chipset and it works fine with via-rhine Linux driver. On Windows XP, card is recognized as Realtek card and works with Realtek driver. On OpenBSD, card works with vr driver…

MAC address confirms me that is Realtek card : http://www.coffer.com/mac_find/?string=00%3AE0%3A4C
Then I have VIA chipsets marked as Realtek Chipsets !
Perhaps a factory error…

Posted in English, Hardware, Network | 1 Comment »

rm my laptop’s tail

Sunday, February 26th, 2006

Continuation of my “So fragile Acer Aspire laptop” and My laptop has … a tail (not the user command) adventures.

An other problem with my laptop : my precedent repairs was not quite solid and I must start again solderings in CNRS laboratories. To have a solid connector, I saw protection for padlock :

bye of pseudo-protection

And I fix a real connector (not an Acer one) :

my new connector

I hope that is the end of the story of my laptop’s connector.

Posted in English, Hardware | Comments Off on rm my laptop’s tail

My laptop has … a tail (not the user command)

Monday, January 16th, 2006

Continuation of my “So fragile Acer Aspire laptop” adventures.

Despite new solderings, I have again a problem with my connector for AC adaptor. To have peace, I replace this connector with a new one. But it must be out of my laptop ! After some solderings, my computer have a tail :

tail -f my-acer-latop

Thanks again to Maxime Keller and CNRS laboratories.

Posted in English, Hardware | Comments Off on My laptop has … a tail (not the user command)

So fragile Acer Aspire laptop

Monday, October 24th, 2005

I have a 2 year-old Acer Aspire laptop with Debian Linux installed.

Modern hardware have now chipsets with millions of capacitors. But finish is not perfect. For example, my laptop have a very bad connector for AC adapter. This connector have fragile solderings then during 4 weeks, I must branch my AC adapter in particulars position to have a connection ! After this, connector was broken and my laptop must be down…

Broken connector

My only solution was a complete dismantling and precise solderings. Thanks to Maxime Keller and CNRS laboratories.

CNRS solderings

Posted in English, Hardware | 4 Comments »

Just blog it

Wednesday, October 5th, 2005

I decide on opening a blog !
Just another stupid blog ? Probably !
But my goal is not to talk about my exciting life. See my main reasons for blogging :

  • To avoid repeating my computer stories
  • To talk about computer science in general
  • To exchange computers problems/solutions
  • To practice English

Choice for blog software was between Dotclear and WordPress. I chose WordPress for his sorting features (large possibilities with categories) and because several Debian developers use it.

Just blog it !

Posted in English | 1 Comment »

Newer Entries »