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215 lines
8.8 KiB
Plaintext
215 lines
8.8 KiB
Plaintext
Linux and the 3Com EtherLink III Series Ethercards (driver v1.18c and higher)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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This file contains the instructions and caveats for v1.18c and higher versions
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of the 3c509 driver. You should not use the driver without reading this file.
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release 1.0
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28 February 2002
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Current maintainer (corrections to):
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David Ruggiero <jdr@farfalle.com>
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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(0) Introduction
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The following are notes and information on using the 3Com EtherLink III series
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ethercards in Linux. These cards are commonly known by the most widely-used
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card's 3Com model number, 3c509. They are all 10mb/s ISA-bus cards and shouldn't
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be (but sometimes are) confused with the similarly-numbered PCI-bus "3c905"
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(aka "Vortex" or "Boomerang") series. Kernel support for the 3c509 family is
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provided by the module 3c509.c, which has code to support all of the following
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models:
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3c509 (original ISA card)
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3c509B (later revision of the ISA card; supports full-duplex)
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3c589 (PCMCIA)
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3c589B (later revision of the 3c589; supports full-duplex)
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3c529 (MCA)
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3c579 (EISA)
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Large portions of this documentation were heavily borrowed from the guide
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written the original author of the 3c509 driver, Donald Becker. The master
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copy of that document, which contains notes on older versions of the driver,
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currently resides on Scyld web server: http://www.scyld.com/.
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(1) Special Driver Features
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Overriding card settings
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The driver allows boot- or load-time overriding of the card's detected IOADDR,
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IRQ, and transceiver settings, although this capability shouldn't generally be
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needed except to enable full-duplex mode (see below). An example of the syntax
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for LILO parameters for doing this:
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ether=10,0x310,3,0x3c509,eth0
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This configures the first found 3c509 card for IRQ 10, base I/O 0x310, and
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transceiver type 3 (10base2). The flag "0x3c509" must be set to avoid conflicts
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with other card types when overriding the I/O address. When the driver is
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loaded as a module, only the IRQ may be overridden. For example,
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setting two cards to IRQ10 and IRQ11 is done by using the irq module
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option:
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options 3c509 irq=10,11
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(2) Full-duplex mode
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The v1.18c driver added support for the 3c509B's full-duplex capabilities.
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In order to enable and successfully use full-duplex mode, three conditions
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must be met:
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(a) You must have a Etherlink III card model whose hardware supports full-
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duplex operations. Currently, the only members of the 3c509 family that are
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positively known to support full-duplex are the 3c509B (ISA bus) and 3c589B
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(PCMCIA) cards. Cards without the "B" model designation do *not* support
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full-duplex mode; these include the original 3c509 (no "B"), the original
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3c589, the 3c529 (MCA bus), and the 3c579 (EISA bus).
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(b) You must be using your card's 10baseT transceiver (i.e., the RJ-45
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connector), not its AUI (thick-net) or 10base2 (thin-net/coax) interfaces.
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AUI and 10base2 network cabling is physically incapable of full-duplex
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operation.
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(c) Most importantly, your 3c509B must be connected to a link partner that is
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itself full-duplex capable. This is almost certainly one of two things: a full-
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duplex-capable Ethernet switch (*not* a hub), or a full-duplex-capable NIC on
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another system that's connected directly to the 3c509B via a crossover cable.
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Full-duplex mode can be enabled using 'ethtool'.
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/////Extremely important caution concerning full-duplex mode/////
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Understand that the 3c509B's hardware's full-duplex support is much more
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limited than that provide by more modern network interface cards. Although
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at the physical layer of the network it fully supports full-duplex operation,
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the card was designed before the current Ethernet auto-negotiation (N-way)
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spec was written. This means that the 3c509B family ***cannot and will not
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auto-negotiate a full-duplex connection with its link partner under any
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circumstances, no matter how it is initialized***. If the full-duplex mode
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of the 3c509B is enabled, its link partner will very likely need to be
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independently _forced_ into full-duplex mode as well; otherwise various nasty
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failures will occur - at the very least, you'll see massive numbers of packet
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collisions. This is one of very rare circumstances where disabling auto-
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negotiation and forcing the duplex mode of a network interface card or switch
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would ever be necessary or desirable.
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(3) Available Transceiver Types
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For versions of the driver v1.18c and above, the available transceiver types are:
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0 transceiver type from EEPROM config (normally 10baseT); force half-duplex
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1 AUI (thick-net / DB15 connector)
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2 (undefined)
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3 10base2 (thin-net == coax / BNC connector)
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4 10baseT (RJ-45 connector); force half-duplex mode
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8 transceiver type and duplex mode taken from card's EEPROM config settings
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12 10baseT (RJ-45 connector); force full-duplex mode
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Prior to driver version 1.18c, only transceiver codes 0-4 were supported. Note
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that the new transceiver codes 8 and 12 are the *only* ones that will enable
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full-duplex mode, no matter what the card's detected EEPROM settings might be.
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This insured that merely upgrading the driver from an earlier version would
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never automatically enable full-duplex mode in an existing installation;
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it must always be explicitly enabled via one of these code in order to be
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activated.
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The transceiver type can be changed using 'ethtool'.
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(4a) Interpretation of error messages and common problems
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Error Messages
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eth0: Infinite loop in interrupt, status 2011.
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These are "mostly harmless" message indicating that the driver had too much
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work during that interrupt cycle. With a status of 0x2011 you are receiving
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packets faster than they can be removed from the card. This should be rare
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or impossible in normal operation. Possible causes of this error report are:
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- a "green" mode enabled that slows the processor down when there is no
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keyboard activity.
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- some other device or device driver hogging the bus or disabling interrupts.
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Check /proc/interrupts for excessive interrupt counts. The timer tick
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interrupt should always be incrementing faster than the others.
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No received packets
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If a 3c509, 3c562 or 3c589 can successfully transmit packets, but never
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receives packets (as reported by /proc/net/dev or 'ifconfig') you likely
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have an interrupt line problem. Check /proc/interrupts to verify that the
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card is actually generating interrupts. If the interrupt count is not
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increasing you likely have a physical conflict with two devices trying to
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use the same ISA IRQ line. The common conflict is with a sound card on IRQ10
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or IRQ5, and the easiest solution is to move the 3c509 to a different
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interrupt line. If the device is receiving packets but 'ping' doesn't work,
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you have a routing problem.
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Tx Carrier Errors Reported in /proc/net/dev
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If an EtherLink III appears to transmit packets, but the "Tx carrier errors"
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field in /proc/net/dev increments as quickly as the Tx packet count, you
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likely have an unterminated network or the incorrect media transceiver selected.
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3c509B card is not detected on machines with an ISA PnP BIOS.
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While the updated driver works with most PnP BIOS programs, it does not work
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with all. This can be fixed by disabling PnP support using the 3Com-supplied
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setup program.
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3c509 card is not detected on overclocked machines
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Increase the delay time in id_read_eeprom() from the current value, 500,
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to an absurdly high value, such as 5000.
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(4b) Decoding Status and Error Messages
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The bits in the main status register are:
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value description
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0x01 Interrupt latch
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0x02 Tx overrun, or Rx underrun
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0x04 Tx complete
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0x08 Tx FIFO room available
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0x10 A complete Rx packet has arrived
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0x20 A Rx packet has started to arrive
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0x40 The driver has requested an interrupt
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0x80 Statistics counter nearly full
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The bits in the transmit (Tx) status word are:
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value description
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0x02 Out-of-window collision.
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0x04 Status stack overflow (normally impossible).
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0x08 16 collisions.
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0x10 Tx underrun (not enough PCI bus bandwidth).
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0x20 Tx jabber.
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0x40 Tx interrupt requested.
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0x80 Status is valid (this should always be set).
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When a transmit error occurs the driver produces a status message such as
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eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82
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The two values typically seen here are:
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0x82
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Out of window collision. This typically occurs when some other Ethernet
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host is incorrectly set to full duplex on a half duplex network.
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0x88
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16 collisions. This typically occurs when the network is exceptionally busy
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or when another host doesn't correctly back off after a collision. If this
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error is mixed with 0x82 errors it is the result of a host incorrectly set
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to full duplex (see above).
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Both of these errors are the result of network problems that should be
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corrected. They do not represent driver malfunction.
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(5) Revision history (this file)
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28Feb02 v1.0 DR New; major portions based on Becker original 3c509 docs
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