[vortex] FEM656C NIC problems with kernel 2.4

[Felipe Alfaro Solana]

Hello,

I have a 3Com FEM656C CardBus NIC (aka Tornado) installed on my 
PackardBell Chrom@ computer. I have RedHat Linux 7.0 distribution 
installed currently running with kernel 2.2.16/2.2.17. The NIC works 
fine when I use the 2.2 kernel, but when I turn to the 2.4 kernel, the 
NIC is nonfunctional. Let me explain my guessing:

Using "lspci", I have found that kernel 2.2 performs correct resource 
allocation. The FEM656C is a Fast Ethernet controller + 56K modem. The 
kernel 2.2 assigns I/O ports in range 0x1100-0x11ff for the Ethernet 
function of the adapter, and assigns I/O ports in the range 
0x1000-0x10ff for the modem function of the adapter. However, linux 
kernel 2.4 seems to assign I/O ports in the range 0x1000-0x10ff for both 
adapter functions, overlapping the I/O ports range for both the Ethernet 
function and the modem function in the adapter.

When I boot into kernel 2.4, the NIC is nonfunctional as both adapter 
functions are enabled and sharing the I/O ports range. This results in 
the kernel and the vortex-diag tool reporting that my MAC address is 
FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF (which, of course, is not correct). The vortex-diag 
tools is gathering information bith all bits set to to 1, and this 
explains why my MAC address is a network broadcast address and all 
registers are set to FF. If you want more information, I will post all 
the information Igathered from the 2.2 and 2.4 kernels.

Although I am no kernel hacker, I think all of this is due to a bad 
resource assignment done by the PCI drivers in linux kernel and not the 
vortex driver itself. However, I don't know a better place to start this 
thread and who can I send this information to.

Can anyone help me troubleshoot why Linux is assigning the same I/O 
ports range to both functions of my 3Com adapter? Can anyone help me 
fixing or forcing resource allocation for the card?

Thank you very much.
Sincerely,

   Felipe Alfaro Solana

PD: You can contact me at e-mail falfaro@sunformacion.com or 
felipe_alfaro@email.com.