[vortex-bug] Re: 3c59x 0.99H and 3c905B (Cyclone) problems

[Bob Ramstad]

Narendra Sankar indicated that they had a similar problem with a
managed Cisco 2900 Catalyst managed switch.  Apparently this
particular switch runs spanning tree protocol which according to Cisco
can take up to 30 seconds to complete.  They added a sleep > 30
seconds to the network startup scripts and have had no problems.

I have not tried this yet.  Our switch is an unmanaged Netgear 8
port.  Is it common for STP to be used on all switches, or only on
managed switches?

Paul Claessen suggested to check that the card is properly configured
for auto-negotiating using 3c90xcfg.exe that came with the card.  I
have not done this, but /var/log/messages contains:

Aug  3 13:56:58 jerry-garcia kernel: 3c59x.c:v0.99H 11/17/98 Donald Becker http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.html 
Aug  3 13:56:59 jerry-garcia kernel: eth0: 3Com 3c905B Cyclone 100baseTx at 0xb000,  00:01:02:24:13:44, IRQ 10 
Aug  3 13:56:59 jerry-garcia kernel:   8K byte-wide RAM 5:3 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/Autonegotiate interface. 
Aug  3 13:56:59 jerry-garcia kernel:   MII transceiver found at address 24, status 786d. 
Aug  3 13:56:59 jerry-garcia kernel:   MII transceiver found at address 0, status 786d. 
Aug  3 13:56:59 jerry-garcia kernel:   Enabling bus-master transmits and whole-frame receives. 
Aug  3 13:56:59 jerry-garcia kernel: eth0: Updating statistics failed, disabling stats as an interrupt source. 

I'm not sure, but it seems that the third line indicates that
autonegotiate is enabled.  Am I wrong in thinking this?

Also, FYI, the switch DOES light up indicating that there is a valid
100 mbps link when the cable is connected, so it does seem that the
hardware is negotiating 100 mbps correctly.

-- Bob