Re: NETGEAR FA310TX problems

[Marty Connor <mdc@thinguin.org>]

On 6/19/2000 2:57 PM Dennis E. Arce dennis@bournetech.com wrote:
>Well, I've been reading these threads all morning, and I can't find out
>if the FA310TX driver is currently working.

It used to.  I have been somewhat distracted by other priorities, and 
haven't been able to give time to debugging this, but I should be able to 
look at it soon. 

I have a working Netgear FA310TX REV-D2 card here.  What REV code does 
your card have?

Also, my card has an LC82C169C chip on it.  Which controller chip does 
your card have?

I need to build 4.6.2 to compare results with the version I have working 
here.  The problem could be in a number of places - the most likely being 
a mismatch between the driver and the card;  I suspect there might be a 
different chip on your FA310TX than mine;  it could also be a timing bug, 
since some cards need more time than others to reset and become ready to 
accept further commands. I'll have to look at the code to see what 
changes there might be.

>The specifics are:
>I'm trying to create an Etherboot disk to run a computer from my Linux
>server.  I downloaded the most recent version of the etherboot package
>from http://etherboot.sourceforge.net, version 4.6.2.
>The NIC file specifies the lc82cl68 driver for my Netgear FA310TX nic.
>I'm using the command "make bin32/lc82cl68.lzfd0" to build the floppy on
>my Linux machine.  The build goes well, and the PC boots, but the unit
>does not get an address from the server (there are other machines the do
>get the address), nor does the server get a request (I looked in the log
>file)

Thanks for all of the detailed specific information. This will be of 
great help in isolating and debugging the problem.

>Here is the output:
>Loading ROM image..
>ROM segment 0x8000 length 0x4000 reloc 0x9800
>Boot from (N)etwork or (L)ocal? N
>Etherboot/32 version 4.6.2 (GPL) for [Tulip]
>Found Netgear FA310 TX @ 0xF800, ROM address 0x000000000
>Probing...[Tulip] tulip_probe
>Tulip FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF @ ioaddr 0xF800
>tulip_reset

It appears the logic to retrieve the MAC address is broken.  This is done 
early in the process, since the DCHP/Bootp broadcast must have this 
address in it so that card will know the reply is for it.

>Any help??  If it's not working, I just assume use a different NIC, any
>suggestions on a current cheap NIC that etherboot is supporting?

You might have better success with an RTL8139 based card.  They are 
relatively inexpensive, and seem to work reasonably well (at least I 
haven't heard too many problems).  I appreciate your help in making the 
FA310TX card work, however, since they seem to be popular, and I enjoy 
supporting as many PCI based-cards as possible.

>Thanks in advance

Happy to help.

Regards,

Marty



---
   Name: Martin D. Connor
US Mail: Entity Cyber, Inc.; P.O. Box 391827; Cambridge, MA 02139; USA
  Voice: (617) 491-6935, Fax: (617) 491-7046 
  Email: mdc@thinguin.org
    Web: http://www.thinguin.org/


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