[3c509] 920-BR06: Media does not come online

[miim webmaster]

This problem was seen on Debian 3.1r1, with the
2.6-8 distributed kernel.  The gross symptom is
that the media interface never comes on line
(neither the 10/100 LED or the data transfer LED
ever light up.)

The network interface is a 3Com 920-BR06, integrated
on a Micron BCMFX810E, also known as a DFI DF701 --
based on the Intel 810E chipset.  The 3Com diagnostic
program 3C90XCFG.EXE reports this chip as a 3C905C-TX.

The board passes the 3Com internal diagnostics
but fails the media autoconfigure test (with a
cable plugged in and connected to a Linksys
firewall).  The same problem occurs if I plug
directly onto the LAN, so it doesn't appear to
be a problem with the router/firewall.

The problem is consistent across the 3 boards
I have, so it does not appear to be a failure
on the board.  The 3Com diagnostic reports:

3C905C-TX bus 1 Dev/slot 3:
Node address 00 C0 A8 F1 0B C9
Ehterlink 10/100 PCI NIC
"The media type cannot be automatically selected
at this time because the NIC is not connected to
a network."

The Linux driver recognizes the chip, but appears
to be unable to bring the media interface up.

SYSLOG reports the following:
PCI: Found IRQ10 for device 0000:01:03.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ10 with 0000:00:01.0
3c59x: Donald Becker and others,
www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
PCI: 0000:01:03.0: 3Com PCI 3C905C Tornado
      at 0xbc00. Vers LK1.1.19

ifconfig reports the following:

eth0
Link encap: Ethernet
HW addr: 00:C0:A8:F1:0B:C9
inet addr: 192.168.0.150
Bcast: 192.168.0.255
Mask: 255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fc80:2C0:A8ff:FEF1:BC9/64
Scope: Link
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST
MTU:1500
metric: 1
RX packets: 0 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame:0
TX packets:313 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0
carrier:313
    collisions:0 txquelen:1000
RX byte: 0 (0.0B)
TX bytes: 18858 (18.4 KiB)

issuing "ifconfig eth0 media auto" produces
auto: Host name lookup failure
(I seem to have misunderstood the syntax of this
command)

And, of course, attempting to ping the firewall fails.

I seem to remember when I looked at this a couple of
years
back that the 920-BR06 had a bad reputation for not
coming
online properly.  However, I can't find any references
to
that on the net or in the newsgroups.

If anyone can offer advice, or would like to chase
this
problem, I'd be glad to hear from you.


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