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1 | Linux and the 3Com EtherLink III Series Ethercards (driver v1.18c and higher) |
2 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
3 | ||
4 | This file contains the instructions and caveats for v1.18c and higher versions | |
5 | of the 3c509 driver. You should not use the driver without reading this file. | |
6 | ||
7 | release 1.0 | |
8 | 28 February 2002 | |
9 | Current maintainer (corrections to): | |
10 | David Ruggiero <jdr@farfalle.com> | |
11 | ||
12 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
13 | ||
14 | (0) Introduction | |
15 | ||
16 | The following are notes and information on using the 3Com EtherLink III series | |
17 | ethercards in Linux. These cards are commonly known by the most widely-used | |
18 | card's 3Com model number, 3c509. They are all 10mb/s ISA-bus cards and shouldn't | |
19 | be (but sometimes are) confused with the similarly-numbered PCI-bus "3c905" | |
20 | (aka "Vortex" or "Boomerang") series. Kernel support for the 3c509 family is | |
21 | provided by the module 3c509.c, which has code to support all of the following | |
22 | models: | |
23 | ||
24 | 3c509 (original ISA card) | |
25 | 3c509B (later revision of the ISA card; supports full-duplex) | |
26 | 3c589 (PCMCIA) | |
27 | 3c589B (later revision of the 3c589; supports full-duplex) | |
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28 | 3c579 (EISA) |
29 | ||
30 | Large portions of this documentation were heavily borrowed from the guide | |
31 | written the original author of the 3c509 driver, Donald Becker. The master | |
32 | copy of that document, which contains notes on older versions of the driver, | |
0ea6e611 | 33 | currently resides on Scyld web server: http://www.scyld.com/. |
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34 | |
35 | ||
36 | (1) Special Driver Features | |
37 | ||
38 | Overriding card settings | |
39 | ||
40 | The driver allows boot- or load-time overriding of the card's detected IOADDR, | |
41 | IRQ, and transceiver settings, although this capability shouldn't generally be | |
42 | needed except to enable full-duplex mode (see below). An example of the syntax | |
43 | for LILO parameters for doing this: | |
44 | ||
45 | ether=10,0x310,3,0x3c509,eth0 | |
46 | ||
47 | This configures the first found 3c509 card for IRQ 10, base I/O 0x310, and | |
48 | transceiver type 3 (10base2). The flag "0x3c509" must be set to avoid conflicts | |
49 | with other card types when overriding the I/O address. When the driver is | |
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50 | loaded as a module, only the IRQ may be overridden. For example, |
51 | setting two cards to IRQ10 and IRQ11 is done by using the irq module | |
52 | option: | |
1da177e4 | 53 | |
aa4e2e17 | 54 | options 3c509 irq=10,11 |
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55 | |
56 | ||
57 | (2) Full-duplex mode | |
58 | ||
59 | The v1.18c driver added support for the 3c509B's full-duplex capabilities. | |
60 | In order to enable and successfully use full-duplex mode, three conditions | |
61 | must be met: | |
62 | ||
63 | (a) You must have a Etherlink III card model whose hardware supports full- | |
64 | duplex operations. Currently, the only members of the 3c509 family that are | |
65 | positively known to support full-duplex are the 3c509B (ISA bus) and 3c589B | |
66 | (PCMCIA) cards. Cards without the "B" model designation do *not* support | |
67 | full-duplex mode; these include the original 3c509 (no "B"), the original | |
68 | 3c589, the 3c529 (MCA bus), and the 3c579 (EISA bus). | |
69 | ||
70 | (b) You must be using your card's 10baseT transceiver (i.e., the RJ-45 | |
71 | connector), not its AUI (thick-net) or 10base2 (thin-net/coax) interfaces. | |
72 | AUI and 10base2 network cabling is physically incapable of full-duplex | |
73 | operation. | |
74 | ||
75 | (c) Most importantly, your 3c509B must be connected to a link partner that is | |
76 | itself full-duplex capable. This is almost certainly one of two things: a full- | |
77 | duplex-capable Ethernet switch (*not* a hub), or a full-duplex-capable NIC on | |
78 | another system that's connected directly to the 3c509B via a crossover cable. | |
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79 | |
80 | Full-duplex mode can be enabled using 'ethtool'. | |
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81 | |
82 | /////Extremely important caution concerning full-duplex mode///// | |
83 | Understand that the 3c509B's hardware's full-duplex support is much more | |
84 | limited than that provide by more modern network interface cards. Although | |
85 | at the physical layer of the network it fully supports full-duplex operation, | |
86 | the card was designed before the current Ethernet auto-negotiation (N-way) | |
87 | spec was written. This means that the 3c509B family ***cannot and will not | |
88 | auto-negotiate a full-duplex connection with its link partner under any | |
89 | circumstances, no matter how it is initialized***. If the full-duplex mode | |
90 | of the 3c509B is enabled, its link partner will very likely need to be | |
91 | independently _forced_ into full-duplex mode as well; otherwise various nasty | |
92 | failures will occur - at the very least, you'll see massive numbers of packet | |
93 | collisions. This is one of very rare circumstances where disabling auto- | |
94 | negotiation and forcing the duplex mode of a network interface card or switch | |
95 | would ever be necessary or desirable. | |
96 | ||
97 | ||
98 | (3) Available Transceiver Types | |
99 | ||
100 | For versions of the driver v1.18c and above, the available transceiver types are: | |
101 | ||
102 | 0 transceiver type from EEPROM config (normally 10baseT); force half-duplex | |
103 | 1 AUI (thick-net / DB15 connector) | |
104 | 2 (undefined) | |
105 | 3 10base2 (thin-net == coax / BNC connector) | |
106 | 4 10baseT (RJ-45 connector); force half-duplex mode | |
107 | 8 transceiver type and duplex mode taken from card's EEPROM config settings | |
108 | 12 10baseT (RJ-45 connector); force full-duplex mode | |
109 | ||
110 | Prior to driver version 1.18c, only transceiver codes 0-4 were supported. Note | |
111 | that the new transceiver codes 8 and 12 are the *only* ones that will enable | |
112 | full-duplex mode, no matter what the card's detected EEPROM settings might be. | |
113 | This insured that merely upgrading the driver from an earlier version would | |
114 | never automatically enable full-duplex mode in an existing installation; | |
115 | it must always be explicitly enabled via one of these code in order to be | |
116 | activated. | |
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117 | |
118 | The transceiver type can be changed using 'ethtool'. | |
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119 | |
120 | ||
121 | (4a) Interpretation of error messages and common problems | |
122 | ||
123 | Error Messages | |
124 | ||
125 | eth0: Infinite loop in interrupt, status 2011. | |
126 | These are "mostly harmless" message indicating that the driver had too much | |
127 | work during that interrupt cycle. With a status of 0x2011 you are receiving | |
128 | packets faster than they can be removed from the card. This should be rare | |
129 | or impossible in normal operation. Possible causes of this error report are: | |
130 | ||
131 | - a "green" mode enabled that slows the processor down when there is no | |
3f6dee9b | 132 | keyboard activity. |
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133 | |
134 | - some other device or device driver hogging the bus or disabling interrupts. | |
135 | Check /proc/interrupts for excessive interrupt counts. The timer tick | |
136 | interrupt should always be incrementing faster than the others. | |
137 | ||
138 | No received packets | |
139 | If a 3c509, 3c562 or 3c589 can successfully transmit packets, but never | |
140 | receives packets (as reported by /proc/net/dev or 'ifconfig') you likely | |
141 | have an interrupt line problem. Check /proc/interrupts to verify that the | |
142 | card is actually generating interrupts. If the interrupt count is not | |
143 | increasing you likely have a physical conflict with two devices trying to | |
144 | use the same ISA IRQ line. The common conflict is with a sound card on IRQ10 | |
145 | or IRQ5, and the easiest solution is to move the 3c509 to a different | |
146 | interrupt line. If the device is receiving packets but 'ping' doesn't work, | |
147 | you have a routing problem. | |
148 | ||
149 | Tx Carrier Errors Reported in /proc/net/dev | |
150 | If an EtherLink III appears to transmit packets, but the "Tx carrier errors" | |
151 | field in /proc/net/dev increments as quickly as the Tx packet count, you | |
152 | likely have an unterminated network or the incorrect media transceiver selected. | |
153 | ||
154 | 3c509B card is not detected on machines with an ISA PnP BIOS. | |
155 | While the updated driver works with most PnP BIOS programs, it does not work | |
156 | with all. This can be fixed by disabling PnP support using the 3Com-supplied | |
157 | setup program. | |
158 | ||
159 | 3c509 card is not detected on overclocked machines | |
160 | Increase the delay time in id_read_eeprom() from the current value, 500, | |
161 | to an absurdly high value, such as 5000. | |
162 | ||
163 | ||
164 | (4b) Decoding Status and Error Messages | |
165 | ||
166 | The bits in the main status register are: | |
167 | ||
168 | value description | |
169 | 0x01 Interrupt latch | |
170 | 0x02 Tx overrun, or Rx underrun | |
171 | 0x04 Tx complete | |
172 | 0x08 Tx FIFO room available | |
173 | 0x10 A complete Rx packet has arrived | |
174 | 0x20 A Rx packet has started to arrive | |
175 | 0x40 The driver has requested an interrupt | |
176 | 0x80 Statistics counter nearly full | |
177 | ||
178 | The bits in the transmit (Tx) status word are: | |
179 | ||
180 | value description | |
181 | 0x02 Out-of-window collision. | |
182 | 0x04 Status stack overflow (normally impossible). | |
183 | 0x08 16 collisions. | |
184 | 0x10 Tx underrun (not enough PCI bus bandwidth). | |
185 | 0x20 Tx jabber. | |
186 | 0x40 Tx interrupt requested. | |
187 | 0x80 Status is valid (this should always be set). | |
188 | ||
189 | ||
190 | When a transmit error occurs the driver produces a status message such as | |
191 | ||
192 | eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82 | |
193 | ||
194 | The two values typically seen here are: | |
195 | ||
196 | 0x82 | |
197 | Out of window collision. This typically occurs when some other Ethernet | |
198 | host is incorrectly set to full duplex on a half duplex network. | |
199 | ||
200 | 0x88 | |
201 | 16 collisions. This typically occurs when the network is exceptionally busy | |
202 | or when another host doesn't correctly back off after a collision. If this | |
203 | error is mixed with 0x82 errors it is the result of a host incorrectly set | |
204 | to full duplex (see above). | |
205 | ||
206 | Both of these errors are the result of network problems that should be | |
207 | corrected. They do not represent driver malfunction. | |
208 | ||
209 | ||
210 | (5) Revision history (this file) | |
211 | ||
212 | 28Feb02 v1.0 DR New; major portions based on Becker original 3c509 docs | |
213 |