[eepro100] eepro100 does not work correctly after upgrade from RH 7.3 to 8.0

[Andre Mueller]

Hello

I had running without any problems on a Compaq Desktop en small PC Redhat 6.2 to 
7.3 with the eepro100 for the onboard eth0 interface. These days I upgraded the 
OS from RH 7.3 to 8.0 an found that the eth0 does not work again after a simple 
reboot with the eepro100 driver.

the symptoms under are the following:

- starting up the system with power on -> eth0 works with yellow LED for 
activity is on (referencing the LEDs at the RJ45 connector / green LED for data 
traffic) .
- rebooting the system -> eth0 goes down (yellow LED is off)
- restarting the system -> eth0 is not active (yellow LED remains off) although 
dmesg reports eth0 as active (also testing with ifdown/ifup: after ifdow the 
eth0 remained inactive also ifup said ok). no data traffic over eth0 is possible
- the only way to reactivated eth0 is to shutdown the system and power off - on 
the computer (it is also necessitate me to do it by by pulling out the power cord).

I have contacted Redhat Support and RH Bugzilla, but other than suggesting to 
try the e100 driver (the thing worsened with the e100 driver : the yellow LED 
remained always on but did not work on every second boot, on every third boot 
the system crashed.) they had no help at hand.

As I am not so technically proved to get into the deeps of drivers and NICs, I 
would be very grateful for any hint how to overcome the described more than 
annoying problem as I am using this pc as small standalone server far from the 
office and a remote reboot is necessary.

here an fragment of dmesg:

eepro100.c:v1.09j-t 9/29/99 Donald Becker http://www.scyld.com/network/eepro100.html
eepro100.c: $Revision: 1.36 $ 2000/11/17 Modified by Andrey V. Savochkin 
<saw@saw.sw.com.sg> and others
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0a.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:14.2
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth0
eth0: OEM i82557/i82558 10/100 Ethernet, 00:50:8B:CB:6A:68, IRQ 11.
   Receiver lock-up bug exists -- enabling work-around.
   Board assembly 307295-101, Physical connectors present: RJ45
   Primary interface chip i82555 PHY #1.
   General self-test: passed.
   Serial sub-system self-test: passed.
   Internal registers self-test: passed.
   ROM checksum self-test: passed (0x24c9f043).
   Receiver lock-up workaround activated.

It is also to say that I tried to workout the problem by enabling/disabling 
advanced power management and on LAN wake-up in the bios and also with kernel 
parameters but with no effect either.

Many thanks in advance and best regards,

André Müller



-- 

Andre Mueller
Leuengasse 26 / CH-4057 Basel / Switzerland
Tel +41-1-350 76 10 / Fax +41-1-350 76 12 / Mob +41-78-753 92 95
mailto:andre.mueller@himmel-blau.com
http://www.himmel-blau.com