mii-diag, vortex-diag questions

[Luke Hassell]

Hello all,

I have a couple of questions regarding the vortex-diag, the mii-diag,
and the MII status registers when used on the 3Com 3c905b "Cyclone" cards.

First, has anybody noticed any discrepancies between the mii-diag and the
vortex-diag programs when used on the 3c905b cards?  For example:

# vortex-diag -e -m | nl
     1  vortex-diag.c:v1.07 11/24/98 Donald Becker (becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov)
     2  Found a 3Com PCI Ethernet 3c905b rev 4 at 0xb800.
     3  Parsing the EEPROM of a 3Com Vortex/Boomerang:
     4   3Com Node Address 00:50:00:50:00:50 (used as a unique ID only).
     5   OEM Station address 00:50:00:50:00:50 (used as the ethernet address).
     6   Manufacture date (MM/DD/YY) 2/16/0, division P, product P.
     7  Options: none.
     8    Vortex format checksum is incorrect (00 vs. 50).
     9   Cyclone format checksum is incorrect (00 vs. 50).
    10   MII PHY found at address 0, status 784d.
    11   MII PHY found at address 24, status 784d.
    12   MII PHY 0 at #0 transceiver registers:
    13     3000 784d 0000 0000 01e1 0000 0004 2001
    14     0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
    15     8000 0080 0090 0000 0000 0005 2001 0000
    16     0000 204f 0083 1c11 0002 1000 0000 0000.
    17   MII PHY 1 at #24 transceiver registers:
    18     3000 784d 0000 0000 01e1 0000 0004 2001
    19     0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
    20     8000 0080 0090 0000 0000 0005 2001 0000
    21     0000 204f 0084 1c11 0002 1000 0000 0000.

Notice that the vortex-diag program determines the status register is 784d
(indicated on lines 10 and 11).  Now for the mii-diag:

# mii-diag -a eth0 | nl
     1   MII PHY #0 transceiver registers:
     2     0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
     3     0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
     4     0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
     5     0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000.
     6   Basic mode control register 0x0000: Auto-negotiation disabled!
     7     Speed fixed at 10 mbps, half-duplex.
     8   Basic mode status register 0x0000 ... 0000.
     9     Link status: not established.
    10     Capable of <Warning! No media capabilities>.
    11     Unable to perform Auto-negotiation, negotiation not complete.
    12   This transceiver has no vendor identification.
    13   I'm advertising 0000:
    14     Advertising no additional info pages.
    15     Using an unknown (non 802.3) encapsulation.
    16   Link partner capability is 0000:.
    17     Negotiation did not complete.

Any ideas why the vortex-diag program seems to work while the mii-diag seems
to fail?

Also, does anybody have any technical references as to the meaning of the
MII PHY status registers?  What does the 784d on lines 10 and 11 of the 
vortex-diag output actually mean? I noticed that an unplugged CAT5 cable
yields a value of 7849.

I am using rev v0.99H of the 3c59x.c driver.

Thanks in advance,

Luke Hassell