[tulip] Problem with smc 1255 card -- netdev watchdog timed o ut

[erik.ostlyngen@telelogic.com]

> > The chip on SMC 1255 is called SMC-EN-5251-BE. The behavour is the
> > same as with the 2.4.18 driver, but now the dmesg trace is different:

> Hmmm, I thought that the SMC-1255 board used a Comet-II chip and had a
> device ID 0x1255.  Accton and SMC are pretty much the same company, thus
> the same PCI ID.

> The EN1217 ID was added in November 2000.  When was your board built?
> Note that most chips have a date code of WWYY, week+year.  So 1402 is
> the 14th week of 2002.

I haven't got the network card here with me right now, but I'll check the 
date code when I get home. I'm pretty sure that the chip reads EN 5251 BE. 
Maybe it also has a date code.

> > eth0: MII link partner 0000, negotiated 0000.
> > eth0: No link beat on the MII interface, status 7849.
...
> > eth0: Comet link status 786d partner capability 4081.
> > eth0: MII link partner 4081, negotiated 0081.

> Did you have the board plugged in the whole time?
> What is the link partner?  A 100baseTx repeater, or some other machine?

My network consists of an i386 linux and an UltraSparc linux connected with
a crossed patch cable. The sparc station is switched off when the i386 box
(with the 1255 card) boots.

When the problem occurs, the sparc station reports "nfs server not
responding", 
so it looks like the problem is on the i386 side.

> > eth0: Comet link status 7869 partner capability 41e1.

> Errkkk!  It looks as if autonegotation completes, but you are not able
> to establish a good 100baseTx link.

That's because the sparc station hasn't yet started.

What I've been doing is starting the i386 linux, then boot the sparc from
net. The 
sparc mounts the nfs root fine, and begins to run the startup scripts until,
but 
usually the network gets slow (almost stops) before the startup completes.

If it is any help, I could try to start the sparc first (boot from disk),
then start
the i386, and then try provoke the nfs error. And run tulip-diag some times
in 
between.

> What does /proc/pci or 'lspci -v' report about the latency timer
> settings for this device?
> The BIOS configures the bus arbitration and timers based on what the
> device requests throught the PCI min_grant / max_latency settings.

I'll check this.


/ Erik P. Østlyngen.