Firmware for 3Com EtherLink III 3C509B?

[AllGamer]

Hi all

I'm having a hard time locating a Firmware flash for a 3Com EtherLink III 3C509B to repair 2 old NICs

That was an old EISA & ISA NIC card, it was the fastest of its time 100 Mbps in an era when 10 Mbps was the normal.

Please ping me if you come across a flashable firmware

Thanks

 

[Emulex]

you can't pop the chip off and flash it on a burner?

 

[RebateMonger]

Wow. Just checked eBay prices. I gotta' sell all my old 3Com Etherlink cards!

 

[ScottMac]

I've got some full-length 3C501s ... discrete components, some 2012s, 503s, a basket-full of IBM TR cards, some Fore Systems ATM NICS (fiber and copper 155), a few LatticeNet cards, a couple 8, 16, 32, and 64K static memory cards (S100) ... I can't seem to make myself part with the old junk pile.

I'm waiting for my back to un-knot itself so I can de-rack and toss an old PowerHub and some ATM switches (Two generations of ASX-200s, a Jalapeno (pizzabox ATM/Ethernet edge)) and some other crap.

 

[spidey07]

Wow. 1996 called and says to leave him alone.

 

[AllGamer]

you can't pop the chip off and flash it on a burner?

unfortunately no, it's soldered in

even if i go through the trouble of desordering it out

i still need a firmware to flash back into it

 

[VirtualLarry]

Since when do NICs require firmware for operation? I thought that the eeprom was only for BIOS/PXE/etc support. Everything other than boot support is handled by drivers.

 

[Emulex]

people put slic and other kewl functions in the rom area

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hmm, I never thought of putting SLIC into a LAN card's boot rom, interesting. (I have some Gig PCI ethernet cards with ROM slots, maybe I could use those.)

 

[john3850]

Seen posts were people use intel roms as bootloaders to bypass windows activation.
You can edit and and add lines of what ever you want to in intel roms

 

[ComputerWizKid]

Yep! Windows 7 is the easiest OS (That uses product activation) to hack/crack for activation
Just ask me as I am too cheap to buy 3 copies of the OS (Being one for each of my 3 computers, I bought Ultimate for my main computer and I used readily available tools to install/activate it on my other two computers