Slow connections with 3COM 3C905-TX

[Sven Wiebus]

Hello everybody,

I'm using a 3COM 3C905-TX network card in a PII-166 HP-Vectra VL. My
Linux-Version is SuSE 6.2 (Kernel 2.2), using the v0.99L 3c905 Boomerang
driver with default settings for the network card.

The problem I have is, that most the time, I only get up/downlaodspeeds of
about 10kBytes/s. Only sometimes, and then never for longer than some 30
seconds at the beginning of a file transfer, I get speeds up to 800 kBytes/s
(peers only have 10Mbit  connections). After this 30 seconds, if at all,
speed falls back to about 8kBytes/s for the rest of the transfer.

I encounter this problem independend from peer. I tried a direct connection
to an HP-UX workstation, as well as several other machines (all HP-UX) via
Transcent and 3COM switches and/or a hub.

When using the hub, it indicates both, 10BaseT and 100BaseT links for the
linux machine. Moreover, the moment I start a file transfer to or from the
linux machine, the hub indicates tons of collisions. But only the hub,
"netstat -i" and "ifconfig" report no errors.

Forcing the network driver to 10Base10 or 100BaseT also has no effect.

Any ideas?

Thank you very much in advance!

Greetings
Sven Wiebus

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