[vortex-bug] Transmit errors, performance, and other problems

[Stephen L Arnold]

Howdy:

I'm having some problems with the 3c59x driver in a cheesy Dell XPS T500 with RH6.1, but I'm not sure which version of the driver it is because dmesg fills up right away with:

eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
...

That's problem number 1.  Problem 2 is very bad performance (on the order of 100k/sec for ftp transfers).  If I mess with the mii-diag switches, I can usually get the performance up to about 5M/sec, but it won't stay there.  I'm on a 100BaseTX - full duplex network, but the switch I'm connected to says I'm only at half duplex (while all the stupid windoze boxes, which have Netgear 310 rev D2 NICs in them, say they're running at full duplex).

Here is the output of mii-diag -v:

[root@shiva test]# ./mii-diag -v eth0
mii-diag.c:v2.00 4/19/2000  Donald Becker (becker@scyld.com)
 http://www.scyld.com/diag/index.html
 MII PHY #24 transceiver registers:
   3000 780d 0040 6176 05e1 0000 0000 0000
   0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
   1000 0300 0000 0000 0000 03ed 0300 0000
   0036 000c 0f00 ff40 0026 0000 0000 000b.
 Basic mode control register 0x3000: Auto-negotiation enabled.
 You have link beat, and everything is working OK.
   This transceiver is capable of  100baseTx-FD 100baseTx 10baseT-FD 10baseT.
   Able to perform Auto-negotiation, negotiation not complete.
 Your link partner does not do autonegotiation, and this transceiver type
  does not report the sensed link speed.
 MII PHY #24 transceiver registers:
   3000 780d 0040 6176 05e1 0000 0000 0000
   0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
   1000 0300 0000 0000 0000 01dd 0400 0000
   0036 000c 0f00 ff40 0026 0000 0000 000b.
 Basic mode control register 0x3000: Auto-negotiation enabled.
 Basic mode status register 0x780d ... 780d.
   Link status: established.
   Capable of  100baseTx-FD 100baseTx 10baseT-FD 10baseT.
   Able to perform Auto-negotiation, negotiation not complete.
 Vendor ID is 00:10:18:--:--:--, model 23 rev. 6.
   No specific information is known about this transceiver type.
 I'm advertising 05e1: Flow-control 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx 10baseT-FD 10baseT
   Advertising no additional info pages.
   IEEE 802.3 CSMA/CD protocol.
 Link partner capability is 0000:.
   Negotiation did not complete.

Why is the negotiation not completing?  Is it the switch? (it seems to work with all the windoze boxes)  The switch is an el-cheapo Linksys 10/100 (which a friend of mine says is probably crap) but I don't control any of that stuff.  I read through much of the recent list archive, and saw lots of other people having various problems, parts of them overlapping with mine, but no real solutions.  What should I do?

A) Should I try the 3-com driver?
B) Will the Andrew Morton driver (3c59x.c-2.2.16-pre4-6.gz) work with 2.2.12, or do I have to upgrade the kernel?
C) Where is the most recent driver from DB?
D) Should I just replace it with a Netgear card?

Thanks in advance, Steve Arnold

****************************************************************
Stephen L. Arnold                        Senior Systems Engineer
VAFB IV&V Activity                email:  arnold.steve@ensco.com
ENSCO Inc.                            www:  http://www.ensco.com
P.O. Box 5488                                voice: 805.606.8838
Vandenberg AFB, CA  93437                      fax: 805.734.4779
                         
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