[vortex] WOL & 3c59x "problem" solved

Marcin Dutka marcin.dutka at wp.pl
Wed Jun 8 04:01:01 PDT 2005


Dear Sir,

I've been trying to make my 3Com 3C905B-TX network card able to wake my
Linux box using "Wake On LAN" feature.

I've read WOL HowTo at www.scyld.com as well as WOL Mini-Howto, set up BIOS
correctly, put WOL cable in place, added correct parameters for 3c59x
module, tried different cards and so on, with no luck. Everything seemed to
be set up correctly - with no effect... Than I've searched Internet for
answers, which only pointed me to conclusion that many people out there
share my problem...

It took me some time to figure out why it wasn't working. Answer is simple
and - I think - obvious to you: card must be put in D3 mode before
power-off, and it can must done by shutting down ethernet device using
"ifconfig eth0 down" command.

Unfortunately, this command ISN'T issued by standard system shutdown script
(at least in Slackware 9.0 dist). That was the problem -adding such command
to rc.0 script resulted in working WOL :)

However, this "solution" - as, I think, obvious - is not mentioned in any
FAQ or Howto. Please consider adding this info to your Howto - surely it
will make other people's life simplier ;)

    Best regards,

             Marcin Dutka



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