[3c509] Cannot bring up two 3c509 cards

[J. David Blackstone]

> On Fri, 15 Feb 2002, J. David Blackstone wrote:
> 
>>   I've added a second 3c509 to my RedHat 7.2 system, and I cannot seem to
>> get both cards activated.
>>
>>   dmesg reports both cards as being IRQ 5.  How can I tell the second card
>> to use a different IRQ?  I've specified a different one in
>> /etc/modules.conf, as suggested in the Ethernet HOWTO:
>>
>> alias eth0 3c509
>> alias eth1 3c509
>> options eth0 -o 3c509-0 irq=5
>> options eth1 -o 3c509-1 irq=7
>
> I don't know where you read this, but the advice to load multiple
> instances of the 3c509 module was wrong.
>
> The subsequent module load will deactivate previously detected chips.
>
> You should only have the following two lines.
>
> alias eth0 3c509
> alias eth1 3c509
>
>>   I'm looking at the isapnp utilities trying to find a way to change the
>> IRQ.  Am I looking in the right place?
>
> It depends on if you are using the native 3c509 activation, or PnP
> activation.  I recommend 3c509 (non-PnP) activation for 3c509 cards.
>
> Donald Becker    becker@scyld.com
> Scyld Computing Corporation  http://www.scyld.com
> 410 Severn Ave. Suite 210  Second Generation Beowulf Clusters
> Annapolis MD 21403   410-990-9993
>
>

  Thanks for the info.  I've just gotten both cards working after an hour
and a half of misery, mostly brought on by ignoring warnings about the -E
option to the 3c509 setup tool.

  Both cards are now working, although the original hardware addresses have
been reset, along with everything else.  Learning the hard way! :)  I'm
actually typing this on an IP_MASQ'ed machine coming in through one 3c509
and redirected out through the other.

  The information about loading multiple instances of the module came from
the Ethernet HOWTO in LDP.  It does seem to work in my case, although I
think what I should have done was either combine those two option lines
into one or leave them out entirely.  I'll probably do some more checking.

  The IRQs have now been set to 5 and 7.  Apparently having them both set
to 5 was the source of all my problems.  The answer was to use the setup
utility from scyld.com to change one, but I didn't realize originally that
the IRQ was set on the card itself.  isapnputils had nothing to do with
anything.  (I think I'm using non-Pnp activation.)  I'm originally from the
Mac world, so all this stuff about IRQs isn't as familiar to me as it needs
to be.  It is, however, much more familiar to me now than it was 24 hours
ago.

  Thanks for the help, and hopefully this msg will help anyone else in my
situation who searches through the mailing list.

J. David Blackstone