Author Topic: RTL8211CL DRIVER  (Read 27804 times)

Ben

  • Guest
RTL8211CL DRIVER
« on: February 20, 2018, 06:52:28 pm »
Hello

I recently had to upgrade my motherboard and it came with a built-in LAN that uses the RTL8211CL chipset, however, I have not been able to find a driver for it.

Does anyone know of a driver that works with that chip and where I can get it?

Thanks

Doug Bissett

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1593
  • Karma: +4/-2
    • View Profile
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2018, 07:36:27 pm »
That is difficult to answer, when we don't know the PCI ID of the device. It should be something like 10EC:8168. You can find that information by running PCI.EXE. I would expect that the Multimac MMRE driver should support it. If not, post the information at the Arca Noae MANTIS site (I assume that you have a subscription), and ask for support.

I would suggest that it is always prudent to check the specs, before you purchase, and be sure that you know what will, and won't, be supported.

Martin Iturbide

  • OS2World NewsMaster
  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4713
  • Karma: +41/-1
  • Your Friend Wil Declares...
    • View Profile
    • Martin's Personal Blog
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2018, 07:42:14 pm »
Hi Ben

It can also be great if you can share your PCI.exe report and your new mainboard brand and model so I can include it on the OS2World wiki mainboards list.

Regards.
Martin Iturbide
OS2World NewsMaster
... just share the dream.

Ben

  • Guest
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2018, 08:22:07 pm »
That is difficult to answer, when we don't know the PCI ID of the device. It should be something like 10EC:8168. You can find that information by running PCI.EXE. I would expect that the Multimac MMRE driver should support it. If not, post the information at the Arca Noae MANTIS site (I assume that you have a subscription), and ask for support.

I would suggest that it is always prudent to check the specs, before you purchase, and be sure that you know what will, and won't, be supported.

Thanks for replying Doug. I am using eCS 2.2 b2(?). ArcNoa is too big an investment at $150US, (nearly $200 Canadian).
It isn't a new motherboard, rather one that I came upon years back that was a convenient replacement.

PCI.exe does not yield any information on the device other than to say that it is an RTL chip. Perhaps that program is too old or is using an old database.


Doug Bissett

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1593
  • Karma: +4/-2
    • View Profile
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2018, 10:10:03 pm »
Quote
It isn't a new motherboard, rather one that I came upon years back that was a convenient replacement.

Okay, that probably means that the devices is supported, but we need to know what the PCI ID is.

Quote
PCI.exe does not yield any information on the device other than to say that it is an RTL chip. Perhaps that program is too old or is using an old database

It should tell you what the ID is. Post that section of the output. It may also help, if we knew what the motherboard is.

Ben

  • Guest
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #5 on: February 21, 2018, 12:05:30 am »
Quote
It isn't a new motherboard, rather one that I came upon years back that was a convenient replacement.

Okay, that probably means that the devices is supported, but we need to know what the PCI ID is.

Quote
PCI.exe does not yield any information on the device other than to say that it is an RTL chip. Perhaps that program is too old or is using an old database

It should tell you what the ID is. Post that section of the output. It may also help, if we knew what the motherboard is.

I would have to copy that information by hand; I will take another look at it to see if there is anything pertinent.

The closest I can get to a working driver is the RTL8169. I get an IRQ detection error when it loads, but I have no problem pinging the relevant NIC, (I have two in the server).

There is a command that I have used in the past for the protocol.ini entry for that driver to get it to bypass IRQ 15. PCI says that the chip uses IRQ16. So I tried the line IRQ16OVR="YES" to see if that would work. That="no" heheh.
 I have no idea where I found that line to so many years ago. I have no idea if forcing the driver to use IRQ6 would help anyone, but that's a good place to start.

BTW, the line that I used in the past was "IRQ15OVR="no".

Roderick Klein

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 655
  • Karma: +14/-0
    • View Profile
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2018, 01:07:54 am »
1. Dump the output to os2world.com of pci -i dump.txt. Presto.

2. Good luck with that old driver Ben.  Realtek had bad habbit of releasing many chipset revisions under the same chipset ID. Resulting in older drivers no longer working.  You could consider buying an Arca Noae OS/2 and eCS drivers and subscription for 49 Dollars.

But first check If you have your PCI id from PCI.EXE you can see if the chipset is supported by the Multimac drivers:
https://www.arcanoae.com/wiki/multimac/

Roderick

Ben

  • Guest
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2018, 01:55:56 am »
1. Dump the output to os2world.com of pci -i dump.txt. Presto.

2. Good luck with that old driver Ben.  Realtek had bad habbit of releasing many chipset revisions under the same chipset ID. Resulting in older drivers no longer working.  You could consider buying an Arca Noae OS/2 and eCS drivers and subscription for 49 Dollars.

But first check If you have your PCI id from PCI.EXE you can see if the chipset is supported by the Multimac drivers:
https://www.arcanoae.com/wiki/multimac/

Roderick

Thanks for replying Roderick, but as I said, the PCI sniffer hardly shows anything on the chipset other than acknowledging the existence of it.
Also, I would have to type the info by hand... keep in  mind that the machine in question has no LAN access, (meaning Internet too).

I suspect that my pcidevs.txt is too old, (16 MAY 2013), to provide any data on it. I tried to find a later one, but I believe that they stopped updating it. Does anyone know where I can find a more recent version?

The Subsystem vendor number, (at least a partial one), is 10ECh
The Subsystem ID is 816910ECh

I had a look on the Arca Noae site and it does not specifically list that number.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2018, 02:02:14 am by Ben »

Dariusz Piatkowski

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1317
  • Karma: +26/-0
    • View Profile
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #8 on: February 21, 2018, 02:55:44 am »
...Thanks for replying Roderick, but as I said, the PCI sniffer hardly shows anything on the chipset other than acknowledging the existence of it....

I've attached two files I use on my system, both dated 2017, take a look at this stuff.

In the meantime, granted w/o net connection that's a PITA, but what can you fish out of the PCI output?

Here is what I see on my machine, pertinent info in bold and italics:

=== START ===
 Bus 2 (PCI Express), Device Number 0, Device Function 0
 Vendor 10ECh Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
 Device 8168h RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
 Command 0107h (I/O Access, Memory Access, BusMaster, System Errors)
 Status 0010h (Has Capabilities List, Fast Timing)
 Revision 03h, Header Type 00h, Bus Latency Timer 00h
 Self test 00h (Self test not supported)
 Cache line size 64 Bytes (16 DWords)
 PCI Class Network, type Ethernet
 Subsystem ID 75761462h Onboard RTL8111b on MSI P965 Platinum Mainboard (Guess O
nly!)
 Subsystem Vendor 1462h Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI]
 Address 0 is an I/O Port : D800h..D8FFh
 Address 1 is not present or not configured!
 Address 2 is a Memory Address (64-bit, Prefetchable) : FDFFF000h..FDFFFFFFh
 Address 4 is a Memory Address (64-bit, Prefetchable) : FDFF8000h..FDFFBFFFh
 System IRQ 17, INT# A
 Expansion ROM of 128 KiB decoded by this card, currently disabled
 New Capabilities List Present:
   Power Management Capability, Version 1.2
     Supports low power State D1
     Supports low power State D2
     Supports PME# signalling from mode(s) D0, D1, D2, D3hot, D3cold
     PME# signalling is currently disabled
     3.3v AUX Current required : 375 mA
     Current Power State : D0 (Device operational, no power saving)
   Message Signalled Interrupt Capability
     MSI is enabled
     MSI function can generate 64-bit addresses
   PCI Express Capability, Version 2
     Device/Port Type :
       PCI Express Endpoint Device
     Device Capabilities :
       Unsupported Request Severity is Non-Fatal
     Device Status :
       Correctable Error Detected
       Unsupported Request Detected
       AUX Power Detected
     Link Capabilities :
       Maximum Link speed : 2.5Gb/s
       Maximum Link Width : x1
       Link Port Number   : 0
     Link Control :
       Common Clock Configuration In Use
     Link Status :
       Current Link speed : 2.5Gb/s
       Current Link Width : x1
   MSI-X Capability
   Vital Product Data Capability
     VPD Data not present
=== STOP ===

Quote
...The Subsystem vendor number, (at least a partial one), is 10ECh
The Subsystem ID is 816910ECh...

This device ID = 8169, the 10ECH is the vendor ID, is listed several times in the files I zipped up. But as others pointed out, it references to a number of different devices.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2018, 02:58:55 am by Dariusz Piatkowski »

Ben

  • Guest
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #9 on: February 21, 2018, 03:25:17 am »
Ah, yes. Thank-you very much Dariusz; that did the job.

Code: [Select]
Subsystem ID 816910ECh RTL8169/8110 Family PCI Gigabit Ethernet NIC (Generic ID)
 Subsystem Vendor 10ECh Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
 Address 0 is an I/O Port : BC00h..BCFFh
 Address 1 is a Memory Address (0-4GiB) : FDEFF000h
 System IRQ 16, INT# A
 Expansion ROM of 128 KiB decoded by this card, currently disabled
 New Capabilities List Present:
   Power Management Capability, Version 1.1
     Supports low power State D1
     Supports low power State D2
     Supports PME# signalling from mode(s) D1, D2, D3hot, D3cold
     PME# signalling is currently disabled
     3.3v AUX Current required : 375 mA
     Current Power State : D0 (Device operational, no power saving)

Doug Bissett

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1593
  • Karma: +4/-2
    • View Profile
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #10 on: February 21, 2018, 05:51:19 am »
Okay, it is a 10EC:8169, which is used in many systems. The best driver is Multimac MMRE. The other alternative is the older Multimac R8169 driver (it is in eCS 2.2b2), but it doesn't work with every 10EC:8169. Do NOT use the older R8168 driver. It can leave the NIC in a state where the only way to get the interface turned back on, is a complete power off (pull the power cord, for a couple of minutes, and remove a battery if it is a laptop).

Ben

  • Guest
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #11 on: February 21, 2018, 01:11:12 pm »
Interesting.

But, I have tried the R8169, (read up), driver that comes with eCS 2.2. If I could get it passed the IRQ detection stage I could probably get it functional. There are parameters that come with that driver, I just can't find them written down anywhere.

With respect to $75.00 for the AN driver pack, that's just too much for a NIC driver: for around the same price I could get a slightly used motherboard.

The unfortunate thing about this motherboard is that it only has one PCI slot and I need two NICs to make it work. If it had two slots then I could just disable the onboard NIC and use another NIC that is compatible with OS/2.

Also, I discovered what the "IRQ15OVR=yes/no" means, simply allowing the driver to use IRQ numbers over 15. I enabled that and now I do not get an IRQ Detection error on booting; alas, it still won't ping anything outside of the NIC... though I can ping the NIC itself... strange.
The Hardware Manager shows that it is using IRQ16.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2018, 02:23:37 pm by Ben »

Ben

  • Guest
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #12 on: February 21, 2018, 02:38:03 pm »
Just in case anyone is wondering, (and don't know it already), the parameters are found in the *.NIF file in the\macs directory.
It is strange that they are not directly editable in the ''Network Adapters and Protocols" settings... though you can add them in there manually.

Now all that I have to do is to find out where things are failing and see if I can 'tweak' the NIC into life... assuming that is even doable with the RTL8169 driver that is.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2018, 02:39:49 pm by Ben »

Pete

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1281
  • Karma: +9/-0
    • View Profile
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #13 on: February 21, 2018, 02:39:39 pm »
Hi Ben

I have a system with an onboard  RTL8168 nic.

I found that it would work fine with the R8169 driver but I seem to recall that I had to install and use the nic in my Windows7 installation before it could be used in eCS2.1/2.2b2. Until then the eCS R8169 driver seemed to load OK during eCS boot but had no connectivity when the system was loaded. Might be worth trying if you have a Windows installation on that system.


Regards

Pete



Ben

  • Guest
Re: RTL8211CL DRIVER
« Reply #14 on: February 21, 2018, 02:43:40 pm »
Interesting, Pete.

I yanked the motherboard out of a working Windows 7 setup so anything that Windows would activate would be done by now.

Hmm... I was just wondering, does ANoae have an upgrade plan for old eCS users? If I could get the whole OS for $50 US, ($75 Can), as in previous OS/2 upgrades, it might be worthwhile to do so now. Does anyone know anything about that?