Re: RTL8029 (NE PCI) Probing-Problem found !

[Ken Yap <ken@nlc.net.au>]

>So, I found the problem, I reported the bug 3 weeks ago.
>I told that the NE-PCI probing hangs on my RTL8029AS nic.
>It hangs on the end of the first pio_write call in the
>probing.
>
>Dirk von Suchodoletz told me, that with the old 4.4.x version
>this probing runs ok. So I did a code comparison and found one
>significant difference in the ns8390.c
>
>#ifdef	INCLUDE_NS8390
>	eth_flags |= FLAG_16BIT;	/* force 16-bit mode */
>#endif
>
>Thew problem is that the probing code 'defines' that the card has
>to do data transfers in 16bit mode and pio_write and pio_read
>depends their operation to this flag. But 'nobody' tells the chip,
>that it 'must' use 16bit mode. I removed the code (#if 0..#endif),
>and the etherboot for my card works well.
>
>Why was this line added in version 4.6. Are there cards which
>needs this data transfer mode in this state of initialisation ?

Hmm, dammed if you do, dammed if you don't. This line was added earlier
because somebody found that some NEPCI cards must be handled in 16-bit
mode and the probe algorithm wrongly detects 8-bit mode. See the LOG
file for when it happened. So who

1. Has a foolproof algorithm for detecting whether a NEPCI is in 8 or
16 bit mode, or

2. Knows how to force all NEPCIs to 16 bit mode.

I've just got back from vacation and will be merging all those patches
you've sent me in the meantime and I hope to release 4.6.3 soon.
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