[eepro100] Red Hat, eepro100 (onboard) and wait_for_cmd_timeout_done

[Freddy Chavez]

Hi. I have the (well-known?) problem with the NIC eepro100 and the driver
that comes with Red Hat. I can't install Red Hat 7.x or 8.0 via FTP, HTTP or
NFS because it stop in the middle and shows "wait_for_cmd_timeout_done".

I've read many mails about that problem and it seems that it doesn't have a
well-known solution. Someone said "I would suggest you use external PCI
based card". Someone said "deactivate APM support in BIOS". Someone suggest
run a modified driver in order to get more in-depth messages to debug the
problem. After follow those advices, I can't make the NIC work.

Unfortunately, I have tens of IBM Netvista computers (with the eepro100
onboard) on my network and it's not only the cost of the additional external
NIC, but the cost involved to change the NIC on every computer (some of them
are in remote locations).

Besides, all of those computers are running some version of Windows (98, NT,
2K) for a long time and don't have any problems so I think the problem is
not the hardware.

I _really_ appreciate some advice. Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Freddy Chavez.