[vortex] 3c59x / vortex_error(), status=0xe081 / RAM > 3GB

[Bogdan Costescu]

On Sat, 4 Apr 2009, Detlef Graef wrote:

> after upgrading my PC from 2GB of RAM to 6GB the NIC 3C905C-TX doesn't work 
> any more.

I did a lot of work with the 3c59x driver but that was long ago so 
some information bits have vanished from my memory. I seem to remember 
that the pointers that the DMA engine from the card uses are 32bit 
ones - meaning that you shouldn't expect it to work when memory can be 
allocated beyond 4GB. You can try forcing the use of IOMMU, but how or 
whether that would work depends a lot on the actual hardware (CPU + 
mainboard).

By the way, this problem is not a 3c59x specific one; the hardware was 
designed 10 or more years ago when 64bit OSes existed only on very 
expensive hardware. Modern PCIe based network cards should not have 
this limitation.

-- 
Bogdan Costescu

IWR, University of Heidelberg, INF 368, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany
Phone: +49 6221 54 8240, Fax: +49 6221 54 8850
E-mail: bogdan.costescu at iwr.uni-heidelberg.de