RTL8139 & RPL problem

["Tony Brewer" <tonybrewer@bigfoot.com>]

Greetings everyone! This my first message and it's not about Netboot /
Etherboot / Linux, but I hope it's not too off-topic and that someone can
help me.

I have tried without success to use an RPL boot ROM in a Realtek
RTL8139-compatible NIC (Longshine 10/100 PCI). I downloaded the latest RPL
ROM code from Realtek's website (v3.14, 16K only), created a 64K file
consisting of four copies of this code and burned it into a 150ns 27C512
EPROM. I set the NIC for 16K ROM size and the ROM program itself seems to
work fine, until it hangs when reading the (correct) boot image file from
the server.

(The server runs NetWare 3.11 and NE2000-clones with RPL ROMs already boot
from it without any trouble. The PC with the RTL8139 boots perfectly from
floppy, using either packet driver or ODI drivers, and I'm sure I RPLFIX-ed
the boot image file.)

Version 3.14 of the ROM code appeared on Realtek's website about a month ago
and I assumed that it would work. Perhaps this was a mistake and I could use
v3.13 instead. Does anybody use the RTL8139 + RPL ROM + NetWare server
combination successfully? If so, with which version of the ROM code?

Tony B.

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