[tulip] Netgear FA310-TX NIC problems

[A.J. Rossini]

I'm seeing similar problems as previously reported, with the FA310TX 
locking up after heavy traffic (say, strobe, portscan, solid X, NFS), not
during "normal user" use (telnet, scp, ftp for remote (non-LAN) sites.

Has anyone found a solution?  I'm about to go back to 3Com/Intel NICs,
since this is the first time in years (with Linux, can you say, 7!) that
I've actually had a serious network problem that I couldn't solve 
(networking locks up cold -- ifconfig reports existence, but I can't
ping/telnet/whatever out, I can't look in, and tulip-diag reports similar
to previous reports (can't see now, I'm connected :-), but basically Tx no
Rx (or vice-versa)).

>From a major perusal of the archives from this list, from the Debian
lists, and from Google/Altavista, it looks like lots of people have
success with this NIC, provided that they are running it at 100Base-T or
from switched ether (i.e. full-duplex).  

A simple metaanalysis seems to suggest that the lockups occur at
autodection, running 10BaseT through a hub, or half-duplex, and that
resetting the network cures it (I have found this to be true, but it's
silly to run an every 2-minute cron job to ensure access).

Thoughts?  I've been running the drivers from the 2.2.17pre kernel
(Debian potato/woody), which is the 0.91g-ppc version.

I've just upped the debug level, and will take it through it's paces a few
more times.  

Also, someone has suggested upping a collision parameter before for the
options, or setting the interface explicitly to 10BaseT.  Can anyone
report this being useful? 

best,
-tony

---
A.J. Rossini
rossini@blindglobe.net		 BlindGlobe Networks (personal use)
rossini@biostat.washington.edu	 UW Biostat/Center for AIDS Research