Network Functionality Zero

[Bob Jones]

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:59:26 -0600, Randy Kelsoe <randykel at swbell.net> 
wrote:

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> Nigel wrote:
>> Hi I have installed Fedora Core 1 and have the following problem:
>>
>> The network card appears to have been detected (3c905) and is setup for
>> our network correctly in every way I can think of.
>
> I just tried to install a 3c905 (boomerang) on a machine last night. The
> card was working fine on a Windows machine. After installing it on a FC1
> machine, the card would not transmit.

<snip>

Most of the 3Com cards have a preinstall program that MUST be run PRIOR to 
installing the card in the slot!
This merely sets up the "system/bios ?" for the bus mastering slot and 
associated IRQ to be set on the
card after it is inserted in the slot. What you have to do is:

1) Remove the eth0 setup in Fedora
2) Remove the ethernet card from the computer
3) Boot with a DOS boot disk - no config.sys or autoexec.bat
4) Run the utility - PREINSTALL.EXE and turn off the computer
5) Install the card in the slot and then re-boot into Fedora
6) Setup eth0

This works until you pull the card and put it into a different slot or 
computer.

If you don;t have the original setup disks, take a look at this link, pick 
your card, go to Documentation, Quick Guide, then Pre-install. Somewhere 
at the bottom of the page you can download the floppies (I don't recall 
which one, but I think it's disk1) and then you have to extract 
PREINSTALL.EXE.

http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/searchbyproduct.jsp?path=download&search=3c905Untitled1

We quit using these cards just for this reason. When you're assembling a 
bunch of systems it became a real
PITA and bottleneck.

Bob Jones