[vortex] Strange errors from 3c509B driver

[Bogdan Costescu]

On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Richard Gooch wrote:

>  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 complete.
>  Your link partner is generating 100baseTx link beat  (no autonegotiation).
>
> The IT people told me they set the switch port to 100 Mb/s FD. Of
> course, I have no way of checking, because the switch is in the
> service corridor and I'm not part of the central campus ruling class
> so I don't have a key. This is where the breakers are kept too, so you
> can see why I would feel really empowered :-(
>
> Anyway, even if they fouled up and set the switch to 100 Mb/s HD, I
> would have thought that autonegotiation would have taken care of
> this. I've even power-cycled the box, to no avail.

Autonegotiation should work if the switch is forced to 100/HD, but it
might fail if the switch is forced to 100/FD, which is what the IT people
told you...

In this case, I guess that you only have 2 solutions:
- tell IT people to enable autonegotiation on that port
- force the NIC to FD mode, by using 'full_duplex=1" module option; you
might also need to force 100Mbit.

I don't quite understand why people prefer to force media settings before
problems related to them really appear...

Sincerely,

Bogdan Costescu

IWR - Interdisziplinaeres Zentrum fuer Wissenschaftliches Rechnen
Universitaet Heidelberg, INF 368, D-69120 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Telephone: +49 6221 54 8869, Telefax: +49 6221 54 8868
E-mail: Bogdan.Costescu@IWR.Uni-Heidelberg.De