[vortex-bug] Problem with 3c900 - other card doesn't see it!

[Harvey J. Stein]

I'm trying to use my (RH 6.2, kernel 2.2.19) desktop machine as a IP
masquerading router for my notebook computer.  But the notebook
refuses to come online unless I bounce the desktop interface it's
connected to.

To be more specific, the notebook is a Sony PCG-XG700 with a Netgear
FA411 PCMCIA card (using the ne2000 driver & RedHat 7.1)).  It's
connected to eth0 in my desktop machine with an ethernet crossover
cable.  I'm using roaring penguin's pppoe package to connect through
my DSL modem to the internet (on eth2).  I have 3 ethernet cards in
the desktop, all 3c900s (according to dmesg):

   3c59x.c 18Feb01 Donald Becker and others http://www.scyld.com/network/vortex.htm
   l
   eth0: 3Com 3c900 Boomerang 10Mbps Combo at 0xff00,  00:60:97:b6:c2:cd, IRQ 11
     8K word-wide RAM 3:5 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/10baseT interface.
     Enabling bus-master transmits and whole-frame receives.
   eth1: 3Com 3c900 Boomerang 10Mbps Combo at 0xfd80,  00:60:08:a4:5a:54, IRQ 11
     8K word-wide RAM 3:5 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/10baseT interface.
     Enabling bus-master transmits and whole-frame receives.
   eth2: 3Com 3c900 Boomerang 10baseT at 0xfe80,  00:60:97:23:fc:70, IRQ 9
     8K word-wide RAM 3:5 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/10baseT interface.
     Enabling bus-master transmits and whole-frame receives.
   eth0: Initial media type 10baseT.
   eth1: Initial media type 10baseT.
   eth2: Initial media type 10baseT.

The netgear card is having some sort of startup initialization
problem.  When I:

  1. bring up the desktop machine,
  2. bring up the laptop,
  3. plug in the netgear card, and
  4. plug the ethernet cable into the netgear card,

it doesn't work.  The Link/Act light doesn't come on and the OS
doesn't find a usable network interface.  No connectivity.  Switching
steps 3 & 4 doesn't help.

The only thing that works is to, after doing step 4 above, adding: 

  5. Bounce interface in desktop machine that notebook's connected to
     (eth0).
  6. Bounce interface in notebook (to get DHCP to try again to
     configure the card).

In other words, the netgear card doesn't think it's connected to an
ethernet until I bounce the desktop's interface card while the
notebook is connected.

Presumably, the desktop machine broadcasts something when its
interface is bounced which causes the netgear card to come alive.  It
refuses to come up without first receiving this broadcast.

The only exception to this is that once the card comes online I can
unplug the ethernet and/or remove the card.  If I quickly plug it back
in, it comes online again.  If I wait too long, it doesn't come back
online.

The reason I think it might be a problem on the desktop side is that
when I connect the notebook directly to the DSL modem, its ethernet
card immediately comes online.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on & how to fix it?

Thanks,

-- 
Harvey J. Stein
hjstein@covad.net