[tulip] Problems with Intel LAN

[Donald Becker]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2001, Danilo Godec wrote:

> To: tulip@scyld.com
> Subject: [tulip] Problems with Intel LAN
> 
> Has anyone else here had (and resolved) trouble with (newer) Intel LAN
> chipsets?
> 
> I have one Intel D815EEA motherboard with integrated LAN and one D815EEA
> with PCI Intel LAN adapter. I have similar problems in both situations.

The hardware on the '815EEA is a eepro100, not a Tulip.
You should post questions to the eepro100@scyld.com list, rather than here.

> It sometimes happens that the machine locks up, when the network is
> initalized (I guess when the interface is configured, but could be on
> module load). However, that is quite rare.

This is an undocumented timing "issue" (read "bug").  It appears to be
related to the RxAddrLoad command.  The ugly solution is to delay 10
microseconds after loading the SCBPointer before issuing the RxAddrLoad
common.  No clean solution has been found.

That change is in the v1.13 driver.

> Another problem happens, while the machine is already up. The LAN card
> stops working and reports something like 'card reports no resources'. If I
> re-initalize (ifdown - ifup) the interface, it works again (no need to
> reload the module).

The is a problem in the modified drivers.  Use the driver directly from
Scyld to avoid this.

Users with RPM-based system may install this as
rpm -i ftp://ftp.scyld.com/pub/network/test/netdriver-2.1.3.src.rpm
cd /usr/src/redhat/
rpm -bb SPECS/netdriver.spec
rpm -i --force RPMS/i386/netdriver-2.1-*.i386.rpm


> PS: It may be, that the problem is related to 815 chipset, as I had no
> problems with Intel LAN cards before.

Correct.  IIRC, neither problem existed with the original i82557 chips.

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