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Documentation / networking / 3c509.txt


Based on kernel version 4.16.1. Page generated on 2018-04-09 11:53 EST.

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)
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,
33	currently resides on Scyld web server: http://www.scyld.com/.
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
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:
53	
54	   options 3c509 irq=10,11
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.
79	
80	Full-duplex mode can be enabled using 'ethtool'.
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.
117	
118	The transceiver type can be changed using 'ethtool'.
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
132	     keyboard activity. 
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
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