3c905b timing out on Multia

[Terence C. Haddock]

Dear Jeff Lawson,

	I have had this problem for a while, with no feedback from the
linux driver developers (too busy I guess). I hacked together a fix,
however, that works OK for me. Take the 3c59x.c module from Linux version
2.0.34 (v0.99E) and copy it into your 2.2.1 version, then re-make the
module or kernel. There will be some compiler warnings, but amazingly it
works. This was on an Intel machine, however, so there's no guarentees
that it will work on an Alpha.
	If I had the time I'd try each newer version (F,G,H) until the
problem started again, then try to figure out what changed. But, I need
the 3Com card in a production machine. 

	- Terence C. Haddock

On Wed, 10 Mar 1999, Jeff Lawson wrote:

> I've been trying to get a 3c905b working as a secondary interface in the
> spare PCI slot in my DEC Alpha Multia.  I'm currently running a 2.2.1
> kernel and the effect that I see is that I will be able to use the
> interface without problems for maybe 5 hours or so.  However, after that
> point the card seems to stop responding and all communications over it
> stops.  I don't believe the card itself is fautly, since I've tried
> replacing it with another 3c905b and have experienced the identical
> problem after a few hours of operations.  I can resolve the problem by
> using rmmod to unload the module for it and restarting networking.
> 
> Any suggestions on things I can try?  Would this necessarily be the fault
> of vortex driver?
> 
> 
> 
> Message such as the following are logged:
> 
> eth0: Resetting the Tx ring pointer.
> eth0: transmit timed out, tx_status 00 status e000.
>   Flags; bus-master 1, full 1; dirty 733 current 749.
>   Transmit list 00000000 vs. fffffc00039502d0.
> 
>   0: @fffffc0003950200  length 8000005c status 0000005c
>   1: @fffffc0003950210  length 800000eb status 000000eb
>   2: @fffffc0003950220  length 800000eb status 000000eb
>   3: @fffffc0003950230  length 800000eb status 000000eb
>   4: @fffffc0003950240  length 800000eb status 000000eb
>   5: @fffffc0003950250  length 800000eb status 000000eb
>   6: @fffffc0003950260  length 8000002a status 0000002a
>   7: @fffffc0003950270  length 8000002a status 0000002a
>   8: @fffffc0003950280  length 8000002a status 0000002a
>   9: @fffffc0003950290  length 8000002a status 0000002a
>   10: @fffffc00039502a0  length 8000005c status 0000005c
>   11: @fffffc00039502b0  length 80000119 status 80000119
>   12: @fffffc00039502c0  length 8000002a status 8000002a
>   13: @fffffc00039502d0  length 8000005c status 0000005c
>   14: @fffffc00039502e0  length 8000005c status 0000005c
>   15: @fffffc00039502f0  length 8000005c status 0000005c
> 
> The version info reported by the driver at startup is:
> 
> 3c59x.c:v0.99H 11/17/98 Donald Becker
> http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.html
> eth0: 3Com 3c905 Boomerang 100baseTx at 0x9000,  00:60:97:84:d9:65, IRQ 15
>   8K word-wide RAM 3:5 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/MII interface.
>   Media override to transceiver type 0 (10baseT).
>   Enabling bus-master transmits and whole-frame receives.
>