[vortex] Strange errors from 3c509B driver

[Bogdan Costescu]

On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Richard Gooch wrote:

> OK, why is this? I don't understand why if one end is fixed and the
> other is auto, why the auto end can't sense the carrier and work it
> out from there?

The carrier is sensed (look at the last line of mii-diag report) and
gives the speed, but the duplex part is not, because this cannot be
sensed. When autonegotiation is enabled, data about capabilities is
exchanged in some special packets; but when one side doesn't want to
exchange this packets (e.g. forced setting)...

More detailed info at http://www.scyld.com/expert/NWay.html

> Is there a way of doing this via ifconfig (my man page doesn't
> document a 100 Mb FD option for media type)? I've got 3 NICs in this
> box, and I don't want to end up turning off autonegotiation for the
> other two, otherwise I'll just end up moving the problem down the
> line.

Not that I know of. But http://www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html explains
how to pass options for multiple cards. You should probably have:

alias eth1 3c59x
options full_duplex=0,1,0

in your /etc/conf.modules, although if you use the driver in a recent
2.4-test, you might need to replace 0 with -1, as Andrew changed the logic
to allow forcing HD mode (sorry, I know what the changes are, but not in
which driver version they appear; try reading the beginning of the
driver source, Andrew puts there some comments about changes).

Sincerely,

Bogdan Costescu

IWR - Interdisziplinaeres Zentrum fuer Wissenschaftliches Rechnen
Universitaet Heidelberg, INF 368, D-69120 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Telephone: +49 6221 54 8869, Telefax: +49 6221 54 8868
E-mail: Bogdan.Costescu@IWR.Uni-Heidelberg.De