Quirky behavior of a 3c905b.

[Charles Wilcox]

I don't know if this is the right place to pose this question; if not
please let me know and if possible let me know where to go for help; if
not:

I have been having some strange behavior and finally tracked down what is
causing it, but I'm at a loss about how to fix it.  Several times in the
past I have noticed that my computer was causing extreme collisions on a
hub and would go away by unplugging and replugging the ethernet cable into
either to the computer or the hub.  Recently I realized that something I
was doing might be causing it...  This is what I currently see happening.

I have been been using the DOS 3c90xcfg.exe program to alter the settings
(10 vs. 100 Mb, half vs. full duplex, autodetect).  Whenever I set it to
use 100Mbit (either half or full duplex) I reboot into Linux (Slackware 7,
2.2.13 kernel) and when rc.inet1 runs (I ran this manually from 'single'
mode to be double sure) the card goes into 10Mbit mode.  This is
irritating, but what is worse is when I restart the computer (any way
except powerdown/powerup) the collisions start happening.  It seems to
happen before the BIOS settings run or LILO runs (I can get into the BIOS
screen to prevent it from booting further, but the collisions will already
be happening.)

Oh yea, Windows will not cause this problem.  i.e.  I can set the card to
100Mbit mode, boot into windows, do stuff and restart without causing
collisions.  The connection does not drop down to 10 Mbit either.

This is perplexing to me.  Besides this one thing the card seems to run
fine.  I tried to upgrade the drivers (to 3c59x.c:v0.99L 5/28/99).  This
didn't help.

I guess if rc.inet1 didn't cause the card to switch from 100Mbit into
10Mbit I don't think the collisions would occur after the reset, but this
is just a guess.  Is this defective hardware, a driver issue, or something
with rc.inet1 like the ifconfig line?  Any hints, suggestions, or other
thoughts?

 -- Charles Wilcox


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