3c905b initialization problems

[Donald Becker]

On Sat, 2 Jan 1999, Brian Wong wrote:

> I'm having problems configuring the 3c905b Cyclone card for 100base-TX.
> I am running RedHat Linux 5.2 on a 486DX-100 with three network cards:

Note: some (most?) 486 motherboards have flawed PCI burst implementations.
The Tulip driver explicitly checks for this.

> The following files contain relevant information with the 3c59x
> options=3,10 (i.e. eth0=Vortex=10base-2, eth1=Cyclone=default)

That's the problem.  The 3c905B card doesn't use the 100baseTx-SYM (symbol
mode) interface, it uses MII (Media Independent Interface).
As a general rule you should only specify the media type for AUI and
10base2, which cannot be reliably sensed.  Otherwise use "-1" to use the
default.

> - Note the line "SIOADDRT: Invalid argument." This line appears on
> startup IN EVERY CONFIGURATION, when eth1 is enabled.  It does not
> appear in the system log.

This usually indicates that you trying to add a route that doesn't match the
interface address/netmask.

> - Data is corrupted (a few bytes/MB) when receiving large streams on
> eth1.

If you aren't seeing CRC errors this could be a result of the 486
motherboard bug.  It can be worked around with the PCI burst limits of the
Tulip (see line 1265 of tulip.c:v0.90f) but not the Cyclone.


Donald Becker					  becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov
USRA-CESDIS, Center of Excellence in Space Data and Information Sciences.
Code 930.5, Goddard Space Flight Center,  Greenbelt, MD.  20771
301-286-0882	     http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/people/becker/whoiam.html