[svlug] LAN problems...

[Ray Olszewski]

Did you mean to reply to me individually instead of to the svlug list? I
suspect not, so I am copying this reply to svlug (with your message to me
unedited), since I think others may be better able to help you than I.

I'm not up on the details of setting up pcmcia cards, but there is a PCMCIA
HowTo, and the latest version (at sunsite) has an August 1998 date, so it's
pretty current. (BTW, concerning apropos, for Linux-specific problems, as
contrasted to standard Unix information, I gave up on the man pages long ago
in favor of the HowTos -- you might think about doing the same. The
TurboLinux distribution probably includes them, and reasonably up-to-date
versions are at sunsite in any case.) 

It has this to say about the 3c589 card:

"Current releases of the 3c589 driver attempt to autodetect the network
connection, but this doesn't seem to be completely functional yet. For
autodetection to work, the network cable should be connected to the card
when the card is configured. Alternatively, once the network is connected,
you can force the driver to check the connection with: ifconfig eth0 down
up". You might try this, but I'm inclined to doubt this is your problem.

There is a longer list of troubleshooting directions in section 4.3 under
the heading "Diagnosing problems with network adapters," but I won't quote
them here since doing so would make this message a bit long for svlug. (I'll
copy this stuff to you privately, though.)

Based on my reading of the HowTo, one possibility is that your laptop has a
device that Linux doesn't recognize but that ties up an interrupt anyway (a
Win(pseudo)modem, perhaps?). No guarantees, but I like this hypothesis more
and more. If this is what is happening, you need to tell the card manager
(cardmgr) by hand that interrupt 3 isn't available for assignment; the
details of how to do this are in the PCMCIA HowTo. Reboting &/or power
cycling won't help here, since Linux thinks it's doing it right so doesn't
change its behavior.

If you can't work it out from this info, you'll need help from someone with
more pcmcia experience than I have.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

At 02:52 PM 10/13/98 -0700, you wrote:
>> 
>> At 12:32 PM 10/13/98 -0700, you [javilk] wrote:
>> [deleted]
>> >    The card in question is a 3com.  It is interesting that Owl no longer
>> >beeps on card removal.  Ifconfig lists it as interrupt 3.  It is
>> >interesting that /proc/interrupts lists
>> >    3:        0  3c589_cs  
>> >whereas keyboard has 5,549, timer has a LOT, etc. and the numbers change
>> >as I muck with the hardware listed in the /proc/interrupts table.  Thus
>> >one might conclude that the interrupt listed is NOT the correctd interrupt
>> >vector...
>> >
>> >     Suggestions on what next to try?
>
>> (er, make that /dev/ttyS1). Does the laptop in question (owl) perhaps have
>> both a serial port and a built-in modem? If so, one of them might be
>> contending for the interrupt with the NIC, leading to erratic results (like,
>
>> If this is the problem, you want to move the NIC to a free interrupt in owl.
>
>   Probably!  The /proc/interrupts file can not be edited. (I tried...)
>How can one reassign the interrupts?  I see noting in Apropos about it.
>Re-booting or even power cycling the machine does not help.
>
>- javilk at mall-net.com -----------------------------
>-------- MS asks "Where do you want to go?" -------
>------- Linux asks "What do you want to do?" ------
>-- It is doers, not goers, who built this world! --
>--------- Member: http://www.svlug.org/ -----------
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski                                        -- Han Solo
762 Garland Drive
Palo Alto, CA  94303-3603
650.321.3561 voice                               ray at comarre.com
650.322.1209 fax                 http://www.comarre.com/ray.html
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