[rescue] VFE VME on SGI, WTF?

[Sheldon T. Hall]

I have an SGI Challenge L, and a dual 100baseT vfe board for the Challenge's
VME bus.

What I don't have is a clue.

The board is in the Challenge, in the left-most VME slot.  Two LEDs on the
board, in the back, near the top, are illuminated and glow steadily.

hinv doesn't seem to see the board from the PROM monitor, even after an
`update`.

hinv from IRIX doesn't see it, either.

There's no "vfe*"entry in the /hw/net directory, although et0 is there and
works.

I've done a

	# cd /dev
	# /dev/MAKEDEVS alldevs

which did not produce any error messages I could detect, though it produced
a lot of output.

Then I did an

	/etc/autoconfig -n

which showed that the kernel is "current".

I've searched the IRIX 6.5 disks for likely software to install, and found
nothing.

I've googled many combinations of words, but found no installation
instructions, though I have found a lot of complaints about how poorly the
SGI VME vfe board works.

Can someone swing a clue-by-four in my direction?  Nothing could be too
basic....

Thanks.

-Shel
--
Sheldon T. Hall
shel at cmhc.com
206-780-7971 (CMHC)
206-842-2858 (Home)