Problems with LinkSys 10/100 cards

[Brian Denheyer]

>>>>> "Adam" == Adam Crews <doo@shroom.com> writes:

    Adam> I added a Linksys 10/100 card to both machines as eth1 and
    Adam> have connected them together with a crossover cable.  I am
    Adam> using the tulip.c:v0.90 version of the driver on a 2.0.36
    Adam> kernel.  I have tried the tulip.c:v0.90h version with the
    Adam> same results.

    Adam> Both host's eth1 get the errors: eth1: The transmitter
    Adam> stopped!  CSR5 is 2678016, CSR6 812e2202.  eth1: Changing
    Adam> PNIC configuration to full-duplex, CSR6 812e0200.

Seems like everyone gets that "warning" including me.  And by the way
it is referred to as a warning, not an error, in the source.

What I have noticed is that you have to have both machines up and
running when you load the driver, or at any rate, that seems to help.
I think that the cards do "auto-negotiation" for speed and so when
there is nothing else to talk to when the driver activates the card it
sort of just stops.

In theory, one would think it would "start" again when the other
computer fires up and that does seem to happen when I use win.  When I
use linux I have to ifconfig eth0 down, rmmod and then bring the
eth0's back up to get things working... Not exactly convenient.

The really bad news is that even when it works under Linux->Linux
(2.0.36) the transfer rates stink (< 1 Mbyte/s).  Then again they're
not very good going from Win->Linux either, and I'm using a 7 ft
cable.

So I see two problems :
  A. the warning messages
  B. the crummy performance (< 1Mb/s)

Could someone PLEASE direct me to a datasheet for the LC82C169 so that
I can stop whining and get under the hood and fix this...  I ain't
afraid of device drivers, Donald's already done 100% of the work, that
last 0% shouldn't be too bad :-)   

Also if someone could explain how option interpretation for the
modules works that would be helpful.  It would be nice for debugging
purposes to add options which turned various debugging code on and
off.

In the meantime, Linksys Etherfast 10/100 cards should probably be
avoided.

Thanks

Brian

-- 

Brian Denheyer             briand@deldotd.com
Deldot Design, Inc.        (503) 788-1607
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