"Transmit timed out" with EtherExpress Pro100B

[James Stevens]

Robert G. Brown wrote:
> 
> The thing is, if you try to read the source it
> isn't so bad.  If you are an expert C programmer, that is:-). 

I like to think so. But I have never been involved with hardware drivers
before.

> The key thing here is to figure out what you CAN offer to help fix the
> problem.

I did, I was getting loads of counts in the TX-FIFO, so I tried upping
(to 15) and downing (to 2) both the txiffo & rxfifo, and I tried
removeing the transmitter restart, none of this made any difference. It
chip still hung. I've had this bug, completely re-producable between two
linux boxes on 10Mbps ethernet since 1st Sep and I'm just getting
frustrated with it (the bug that is).

If you have any ideas I'd really appricate them. The error I get is
"status 0050 command 0000" generated by the function
"speedo_tx_timeout". I believe the transmitter _has_ hung, as the system
locks totally when I remove the transmitter restart, and I suspect it is
down to a bug in the chip I outlined in my previous e-mail.

I guess what I really need to do is throttle the transmit traffic to the
card or somthing ?

Can I reduce the TX FIFO to 0 to have packets sent immediatly, or not at
all, instead of being queued ? I know it would hit performance, but it
would be interesting to try.

James