# Broadcom NIC support on FreeBSD 8.3



## sebelk (Dec 5, 2014)

Hi, I'd want to know if the following network cards are supported on FreeBSD 8.3:


Broadcom NetXtreme II 1000 express dual port ethernet adapter
Broadcom NetXtreme II 1000 express quad port ethernet adapter

I've seen that chipset is BCM5709C, I wonder if it's the same that "Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5709 1000Base-T" mentioned at https://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.3R/hardware.html#ETHERNET

Does bce(4) support those cards?

Thanks in advance!


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## Terry_Kennedy (Dec 6, 2014)

sebelk said:


> Hi, I'd want to know if the following network cards are supported on FreeBSD 8.3:
> 
> Broadcom NetXtreme II 1000 express dual port ethernet adapter
> Broadcom NetXtreme II 1000 express quad port ethernet adapter
> Does bce(4) support those cards?


It should. Here's a 2-port BCM5709C on 8.4:


```
bce0: <QLogic NetXtreme II BCM5709 1000Base-T (C0)> mem 0xda000000-0xdbffffff irq 16 at device 0.0 on pci7
miibus0: <MII bus> on bce0
brgphy0: <BCM5709C 10/100/1000baseTX PHY> PHY 1 on miibus0
brgphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-master, 1000baseT-FDX, 1000baseT-FDX-master, auto, auto-flow
bce0: Ethernet address: 00:10:18:xx:yy:20
bce0: [ITHREAD]
bce0: ASIC (0x57092003); Rev (C0); Bus (PCIe x4, 2.5Gbps); B/C (7.4.0); Bufs (RX:2;TX:2;PG:8); Flags (SPLT|MSI)
Coal (RX:6,6,18,18; TX:20,20,80,80)
bce1: <QLogic NetXtreme II BCM5709 1000Base-T (C0)> mem 0xdc000000-0xddffffff irq 17 at device 0.1 on pci7
miibus1: <MII bus> on bce1
brgphy1: <BCM5709C 10/100/1000baseTX PHY> PHY 1 on miibus1
brgphy1:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-master, 1000baseT-FDX, 1000baseT-FDX-master, auto, auto-flow
bce1: Ethernet address: 00:10:18:xx:yy:22
bce1: [ITHREAD]
bce1: ASIC (0x57092003); Rev (C0); Bus (PCIe x4, 2.5Gbps); B/C (7.4.0); Bufs (RX:2;TX:2;PG:8); Flags (SPLT|MSI)
Coal (RX:6,6,18,18; TX:20,20,80,80)
```


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## sebelk (Dec 9, 2014)

Thanks! I've seen at http://tinyurl.com/lr7jqgz that: 
	
	



```
BCM5709C A0 B0, B1, B2 (pre-production)
```
 How I can be sure that a NIC has none of those controllers?

Thanks in advance!

PS: I've found an interesting resource: http://www.broadcom.com/collateral/pg/NetXtremeII-PG203-R.pdf


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## Terry_Kennedy (Dec 10, 2014)

sebelk said:


> Thanks! I've seen at http://tinyurl.com/lr7jqgz that:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No reputable manufacturer should be shipping pre-production parts in their regular product line (as opposed to evaluation units). And at this point in the NXII's lifecycle, any preproduction parts should have vanished from inventory anyway. So if you're buying an system with NXIIs on the motherboard, you should be fine. Likewise for any add-in cards from any major brand (Dell, HP, IBM, etc.).


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## SirDice (Dec 10, 2014)

Please keep in mind that support for FreeBSD 8.3 ended in April 2014. Please use 8.4 instead.

https://www.freebsd.org/security/unsupported.html


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