Re: [Etherboot-users] Problem with LinkSys (Tulip)

[Marty Connor <mdc@thinguin.org>]

On 10/2/2000 9:16 AM Michael Knigge knick@addcom.de wrote:
>I have a LinkSys LNE100TX NIC (PCI-Id 11AD,0002 - same as the NetGear
>FA310TX) that doesn't work with Etherboot (4.7.6). 

Something is very strange here!  I have not seen any NetGear FA310TX 
cards with 0x11ad,0x0002 as their PCI IDs.  Do you have one?  I would be 
willing to pay for one if anyone has one.  

Here are the NIC entries in the Etherboot package for the LNE100TX and 
FA310TX.   # Linksys LNE100TX and other NICs using this Tulip clone chip
  lc82c115        tulip           0x11ad,0xc115
  # Netgear FA310TX and other NICs using this Tulip clone chip
  lc82c168        tulip           0x11ad,0x0002

If anyone has a card that does not match these PCI ids, please let me 
know!  The code is not set up to handle those cases.

To find out what PCI cards you have, in Linux you can do "more /proc/pci" 
to see the devices.  Here is an example:

$ more /proc/pci
....
PCI devices found:
  Bus  0, device  13, function  0:
    Ethernet controller: 3Com Unknown device (rev 116).
      Vendor id=10b7. Device id=9200.
      Medium devsel.  IRQ 11.  Master Capable.  Latency=80.  Min Gnt=10. 
      MaxLat=10.
      I/O at 0x1080 [0x1081].
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xd0000000 [0xd0000000].
.....

Note the Vendor ID and Device ID match what is in the NIC file in the 
Etherboot NIC file:
3c905c-tpo      3c90x           0x10b7,0x9200

>The NIC ist found
>(reported as a NetGear) but it can't connect to the DHCP-Server - my
>DHCP-Setup is ok, I tested with a RTL8139 and a Via-Rhine NIC, they
>work fine).

I suspect the MAC address of your card might be wrong in the DHCP server. 
 Could you double-check that?  you can get your MAC address under linux 
with:

$ /sbin/ifconfig 
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:50:04:A7:17:E7  
          inet addr:192.168.2.8  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1936707 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:61566 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:126 txqueuelen:100 
          Interrupt:5 Base address:0x7000 

It's on the second line where it says "HWaddr".  I suspect you might have 
a typing error in your DHCP config file.  Unless the two machines are on 
a hub, and you are running something like " /usr/sbin/tcpdump host 
my.dhcp.server.com" it is hard to be absolutely sure the card isn't 
talking on the wire.  The blinking lights are not always conclusive.

>Here is a snapshot of what is displayed:
>
>Loading ROM image....
>ROM segment 0x8000 length 0x4000 reloc 0x9800
>Boot from (N)etwork or from (L)ocal? N
>Etherboot/32 version 4.7.6 (GPL) for [Tulip]
>Found Netgear FA310TX at 0xEC00, ROM address 0x003AC000

The ROM address is strange.  Mine is 0x00000000
are you loading from a floppy?  

I am beginning to wonder if there is a problem with Floppyload.bin and 
the Tulip driver.  It is one of the larger drivers.  

>Probing...[Tulip]Tulip 00:A0:CC:20:32:B5 at ioaddr 0xEC00
>LC82C168: MII trcvr #1 config 0000 status 7829 advertising 01E1 reg4
>01E1.
>Searching for server (DHCP)...

>The NIC is connected to a 8port Switch, 100 Mbit/s FullDuplex.  The
>Computer is an AMD K6-III 400, Mainboard is a DFI K6BV3+ (Rev A+, VIA
>MVP3 Chipset).

>Can you image what is going wrong? Any ideas? Can I somehow help ?
>Bye & Thanx

There are many possibilities that need to be checked. if you could run 
this same test with the computer and server connected to a hub, and do a 
tcpdump to watch traffic, the results would be more conclusive.

I am enclosing my tulip.lzrom and floppyload.bin.pre files (they're 
small) to make sure we are running the same code.

The card seems to saying that it is transmitting and never getting a 
reply from the server.  This could be a simple DHCP misconfiguration, a 
bad cable, a bad NIC card, a problem with the VIA BIOS (that ROM Address 
is very strange), a problem with floppyload.bin, a problem with your C 
compiler, etc.

Can we take a look at your DHCP config file and a tcpdump log to see if 
there are indeed packets being transmitted?  I'd stop by, but Germany is 
a little far away :-)

I hope this is of some help to you.  Let us know how it goes...

Regards,

Marty

P.S. Perhaps we should output the Vendor and Device codes (Detected by 
Etherboot) on the line that reads: 
   Found Netgear FA310TX at 0xEC00, ROM address 0x003AC000

How about:

Found Netgear FA310TX (Vendor 0x11ad, Device: 0x0002) 
 at 0xEC00 ROM address 0x003AC000

This would make our bug reports a lot more informative, and we do have 
the information.  

Comments?



---
   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/

tulip.lzrom

floppyload.bin.pre