Hardware compatible with the BCM91250A

The BCM91250A has standard PCI slots (two 32 and two 64 bit slots, 3.3v only) but not all PCI cards (especially graphics cards) are supported. I had a particularly hard time finding a graphics card which would work. With a supported graphics card, the BCM91250A can be used as a desktop like system with USB keyboard. In the following, I've listed hardware which has been tested on an BCM91250A board and which either worked or didn't work.

Graphics cards

  • S3 ViRGE/DX: does not work (with CFE VGA emulation).
  • Nvidia Riva 128: does not work (with CFE VGA emulation).
  • 3Dfx Voodoo3: does not work (neither with CFE VGA emulation nor Linux framebuffer).
  • nVidia NV5M64 (RIVA TNT2): works (with CFE VGA emulation) but only in text mode (no framebuffer or X11). Linux framebuffer does not work.
  • Matrox G450: some G450 based cards work with the Linux framebuffer driver. The version with 16 MB (revision 82) does not work while the 32 MB variant (revision 85) is reported to work!

Ethernet cards

  • D-Link Systems product 0x1300: works with the 8139too module.
  • 3Com 3c905C-TX 10/100: works with the 3c59x module.

IDE controllers

  • Silicon Image PCI0680 Ultra ATA-133 Host Controller: works.

SCSI controllers

  • Adaptec AIC-7892A U160: works (in the 64 bit slot).