[vortex] 3c905C start-up hang

[Bogdan Costescu]

On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Randall A. Jones wrote:

>   We recently purchased quite a few machines that have a 3c509C card.

I guess that this should be 3c905C...

>   when the network starts, the actual connection is delayed by about 30
> seconds *every time*.  It looks like it is stalling at auto-neg.  We
> connect to a Cisco switch.

Please read Documentation/network/vortex.txt from your kernel source tree.
There are some known "problems" with Cisco switches.

> When we connect to the older switch card, the auto-neg fails and we end
> up at 10baseT, but the connection is made immediatly.

This seems to be an unrelated problem. If the cable is OK, I suspect that
the switch has some forced media settings. In this case, either enable
autonegotiation on the switch (recommended) or force media settings on the
driver too. 'mii-diag' should help you here...

> P.S. is it possible to change default settings by adding options to the
> driver in modules.conf?

The options in modules.conf are used every time the module is insmod-ed.
So, for example, if you force some media settings, they will be used every
time instead of the default (autonegotiation or forced setting from
EEPROM).

> It seems that 1 card is no longer working properly (as it was anyway)
> after trying some options in modules.conf.  auto-negotiation fails.

Try rebooting the computer (hard-reset), which might clear any "strange"
hardware states. Try changing ports on the switch or reboot the switch
too.

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