Network Functionality Zero

[Bob Jones]

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 22:54:45 -0600, Rodolfo J. Paiz <rpaiz at simpaticus.com> 
wrote:

> At 21:31 2/17/2004, you wrote:
>> 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

> I have a Fedora computer with two 3Com NIC's in it. Both are recognized 
> and configured and the interfaces come up... but one works and the other 
> does not ("works" being defined as providing actual connectivity via 
> ping, mtr, etc.) Since the non-functional interface is the WAN side and 
> I'm currently out of the office, I cannot say right now whether they are 
> 3C509 (10 Mbps) or 3C905 (10/100 Mbps) models.
>
> Is it possible or likely that this could be the same problem? I have of 
> course checked firewall rules, routing tables, etc. and everything 
> /APPEARS/ to be set up properly. But no joy... no joy...
>
Rodolfo -

'Sorry it took so long to reply. I was out of the office also and couldn't 
put my hands on the info that I wanted to reference. Your problem is just 
the card and the interaction with the BIOS.
3Com has changed some of their documentation since I last downloaded it, 
but in their FAQ page for each card you can find all the caveats about 
which mobos they had trouble with, etc., etc. One of the big ones which is 
not pointed out in the FAQs is that you must read the "User Guide" (a pdf 
download) to preinstall two cards. The problem is "shared interrupts! If 
you still have that second card in your computer you may be able to see 
the interrupts in dmesg. A copy of what I have is below:

-------------------------------------
3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
See Documentation/networking/vortex.txt
00:0f.0: 3Com PCI 3c905B Cyclone 100baseTx at 0xd400. Vers LK1.1.18-ac
  00:10:5a:e6:28:3a, IRQ 18
   product code 5150 rev 00.12 date 11-25-98
   Internal config register is 3800000, transceivers 0xa.
   8K byte-wide RAM 5:3 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/Autonegotiate interface.
   MII transceiver found at address 24, status 786d.
   Enabling bus-master transmits and whole-frame receives.
00:0f.0: scatter/gather enabled. h/w checksums enabled
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth0

Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Driver - version 2.3.18-k1
Copyright (c) 2003 Intel Corporation
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth1
e100: selftest OK.
e100: eth1: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Connection
   Hardware receive checksums enabled
   cpu cycle saver enabled
e100: eth1 NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full duplex

--------------------------------------------------

Needless to say, my second NIC is an Intel Pro/100 card. Those cards go in 
and "just work" I'm running FC1-testing, fully upgraded, on a 440GX dual 
PIII w/Adaptec 2940U2W scsi card - with acpi=on in grub.conf.

Again, I apologize for being so late in responding.

Bob