[tulip] weird latchup

[Clifton T. Sharp Jr.]

I just finished a weird experience. Thursday night, I had the wife's
computer logged into mine, running 'top'. I was distracted when she came
to use her machine and looked at me quizzically, and I told her to just
reboot. So she did reboot... my machine.

When it came back up, I was no longer connected to the Internet, and my
DSL gateway had a strange array of lights. Tech support couldn't help any
even though the tech was familiar with linux (and pretty knowledgeable
for a "level-one" tech). In the process of testing, I swapped the
connections to my two Linksys cards and used reverse_order; the card now
connected to my intranet showed no 100mbps light on the switch, and I
still couldn't connect to the Internet. Eventually I gave up and shut off
the computer, and the lights on the switch REMAINED ON. Must be hardware
failure, I figured, and resolved to pick up a couple of new NICs as soon
as Telocity shipped me a new gateway box.

Well, this morning my nephew said something that made me think. My 'puter
is an ATX type... could the NICs still be getting power? I shut down the
master power switch, and in a few seconds the lights went out. When I
powered the 'puter back up, the lights came on "normally", i.e. with the
100mbps light on the switch lit.

Basically, after six months of flawless operation, the cards latched up
on the reboot, and the ATX design kept giving them enough power to remain
latched.

Now, if I could only figure out why they latched up...

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