1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 2 3 ============================================================================= 4 Linux and the 3Com EtherLink III Series Ethercards (driver v1.18c and higher) 5 ============================================================================= 6 7 This file contains the instructions and caveats for v1.18c and higher versions 8 of the 3c509 driver. You should not use the driver without reading this file. 9 10 release 1.0 11 12 28 February 2002 13 14 Current maintainer (corrections to): 15 David Ruggiero <jdr@farfalle.com> 16 17 Introduction 18 ============ 19 20 The following are notes and information on using the 3Com EtherLink III series 21 ethercards in Linux. These cards are commonly known by the most widely-used 22 card's 3Com model number, 3c509. They are all 10mb/s ISA-bus cards and shouldn't 23 be (but sometimes are) confused with the similarly-numbered PCI-bus "3c905" 24 (aka "Vortex" or "Boomerang") series. Kernel support for the 3c509 family is 25 provided by the module 3c509.c, which has code to support all of the following 26 models: 27 28 - 3c509 (original ISA card) 29 - 3c509B (later revision of the ISA card; supports full-duplex) 30 - 3c589 (PCMCIA) 31 - 3c589B (later revision of the 3c589; supports full-duplex) 32 - 3c579 (EISA) 33 34 Large portions of this documentation were heavily borrowed from the guide 35 written the original author of the 3c509 driver, Donald Becker. The master 36 copy of that document, which contains notes on older versions of the driver, 37 currently resides on Scyld web server: http://www.scyld.com/. 38 39 40 Special Driver Features 41 ======================= 42 43 Overriding card settings 44 45 The driver allows boot- or load-time overriding of the card's detected IOADDR, 46 IRQ, and transceiver settings, although this capability shouldn't generally be 47 needed except to enable full-duplex mode (see below). An example of the syntax 48 for LILO parameters for doing this:: 49 50 ether=10,0x310,3,0x3c509,eth0 51 52 This configures the first found 3c509 card for IRQ 10, base I/O 0x310, and 53 transceiver type 3 (10base2). The flag "0x3c509" must be set to avoid conflicts 54 with other card types when overriding the I/O address. When the driver is 55 loaded as a module, only the IRQ may be overridden. For example, 56 setting two cards to IRQ10 and IRQ11 is done by using the irq module 57 option:: 58 59 options 3c509 irq=10,11 60 61 62 Full-duplex mode 63 ================ 64 65 The v1.18c driver added support for the 3c509B's full-duplex capabilities. 66 In order to enable and successfully use full-duplex mode, three conditions 67 must be met: 68 69 (a) You must have a Etherlink III card model whose hardware supports full- 70 duplex operations. Currently, the only members of the 3c509 family that are 71 positively known to support full-duplex are the 3c509B (ISA bus) and 3c589B 72 (PCMCIA) cards. Cards without the "B" model designation do *not* support 73 full-duplex mode; these include the original 3c509 (no "B"), the original 74 3c589, the 3c529 (MCA bus), and the 3c579 (EISA bus). 75 76 (b) You must be using your card's 10baseT transceiver (i.e., the RJ-45 77 connector), not its AUI (thick-net) or 10base2 (thin-net/coax) interfaces. 78 AUI and 10base2 network cabling is physically incapable of full-duplex 79 operation. 80 81 (c) Most importantly, your 3c509B must be connected to a link partner that is 82 itself full-duplex capable. This is almost certainly one of two things: a full- 83 duplex-capable Ethernet switch (*not* a hub), or a full-duplex-capable NIC on 84 another system that's connected directly to the 3c509B via a crossover cable. 85 86 Full-duplex mode can be enabled using 'ethtool'. 87 88 .. warning:: 89 90 Extremely important caution concerning full-duplex mode 91 92 Understand that the 3c509B's hardware's full-duplex support is much more 93 limited than that provide by more modern network interface cards. Although 94 at the physical layer of the network it fully supports full-duplex operation, 95 the card was designed before the current Ethernet auto-negotiation (N-way) 96 spec was written. This means that the 3c509B family ***cannot and will not 97 auto-negotiate a full-duplex connection with its link partner under any 98 circumstances, no matter how it is initialized***. If the full-duplex mode 99 of the 3c509B is enabled, its link partner will very likely need to be 100 independently _forced_ into full-duplex mode as well; otherwise various nasty 101 failures will occur - at the very least, you'll see massive numbers of packet 102 collisions. This is one of very rare circumstances where disabling auto- 103 negotiation and forcing the duplex mode of a network interface card or switch 104 would ever be necessary or desirable. 105 106 107 Available Transceiver Types 108 =========================== 109 110 For versions of the driver v1.18c and above, the available transceiver types are: 111 112 == ========================================================================= 113 0 transceiver type from EEPROM config (normally 10baseT); force half-duplex 114 1 AUI (thick-net / DB15 connector) 115 2 (undefined) 116 3 10base2 (thin-net == coax / BNC connector) 117 4 10baseT (RJ-45 connector); force half-duplex mode 118 8 transceiver type and duplex mode taken from card's EEPROM config settings 119 12 10baseT (RJ-45 connector); force full-duplex mode 120 == ========================================================================= 121 122 Prior to driver version 1.18c, only transceiver codes 0-4 were supported. Note 123 that the new transceiver codes 8 and 12 are the *only* ones that will enable 124 full-duplex mode, no matter what the card's detected EEPROM settings might be. 125 This insured that merely upgrading the driver from an earlier version would 126 never automatically enable full-duplex mode in an existing installation; 127 it must always be explicitly enabled via one of these code in order to be 128 activated. 129 130 The transceiver type can be changed using 'ethtool'. 131 132 133 Interpretation of error messages and common problems 134 ---------------------------------------------------- 135 136 Error Messages 137 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 138 139 eth0: Infinite loop in interrupt, status 2011. 140 These are "mostly harmless" message indicating that the driver had too much 141 work during that interrupt cycle. With a status of 0x2011 you are receiving 142 packets faster than they can be removed from the card. This should be rare 143 or impossible in normal operation. Possible causes of this error report are: 144 145 - a "green" mode enabled that slows the processor down when there is no 146 keyboard activity. 147 148 - some other device or device driver hogging the bus or disabling interrupts. 149 Check /proc/interrupts for excessive interrupt counts. The timer tick 150 interrupt should always be incrementing faster than the others. 151 152 No received packets 153 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 154 155 If a 3c509, 3c562 or 3c589 can successfully transmit packets, but never 156 receives packets (as reported by /proc/net/dev or 'ifconfig') you likely 157 have an interrupt line problem. Check /proc/interrupts to verify that the 158 card is actually generating interrupts. If the interrupt count is not 159 increasing you likely have a physical conflict with two devices trying to 160 use the same ISA IRQ line. The common conflict is with a sound card on IRQ10 161 or IRQ5, and the easiest solution is to move the 3c509 to a different 162 interrupt line. If the device is receiving packets but 'ping' doesn't work, 163 you have a routing problem. 164 165 Tx Carrier Errors Reported in /proc/net/dev 166 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 167 168 169 If an EtherLink III appears to transmit packets, but the "Tx carrier errors" 170 field in /proc/net/dev increments as quickly as the Tx packet count, you 171 likely have an unterminated network or the incorrect media transceiver selected. 172 173 3c509B card is not detected on machines with an ISA PnP BIOS. 174 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 175 176 While the updated driver works with most PnP BIOS programs, it does not work 177 with all. This can be fixed by disabling PnP support using the 3Com-supplied 178 setup program. 179 180 3c509 card is not detected on overclocked machines 181 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 182 183 Increase the delay time in id_read_eeprom() from the current value, 500, 184 to an absurdly high value, such as 5000. 185 186 187 Decoding Status and Error Messages 188 ---------------------------------- 189 190 191 The bits in the main status register are: 192 193 ===== ====================================== 194 value description 195 ===== ====================================== 196 0x01 Interrupt latch 197 0x02 Tx overrun, or Rx underrun 198 0x04 Tx complete 199 0x08 Tx FIFO room available 200 0x10 A complete Rx packet has arrived 201 0x20 A Rx packet has started to arrive 202 0x40 The driver has requested an interrupt 203 0x80 Statistics counter nearly full 204 ===== ====================================== 205 206 The bits in the transmit (Tx) status word are: 207 208 ===== ============================================ 209 value description 210 ===== ============================================ 211 0x02 Out-of-window collision. 212 0x04 Status stack overflow (normally impossible). 213 0x08 16 collisions. 214 0x10 Tx underrun (not enough PCI bus bandwidth). 215 0x20 Tx jabber. 216 0x40 Tx interrupt requested. 217 0x80 Status is valid (this should always be set). 218 ===== ============================================ 219 220 221 When a transmit error occurs the driver produces a status message such as:: 222 223 eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82 224 225 The two values typically seen here are: 226 227 0x82 228 ^^^^ 229 230 Out of window collision. This typically occurs when some other Ethernet 231 host is incorrectly set to full duplex on a half duplex network. 232 233 0x88 234 ^^^^ 235 236 16 collisions. This typically occurs when the network is exceptionally busy 237 or when another host doesn't correctly back off after a collision. If this 238 error is mixed with 0x82 errors it is the result of a host incorrectly set 239 to full duplex (see above). 240 241 Both of these errors are the result of network problems that should be 242 corrected. They do not represent driver malfunction. 243 244 245 Revision history (this file) 246 ============================ 247 248 28Feb02 v1.0 DR New; major portions based on Becker original 3c509 docs 249
Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries.
TOMOYO® is a registered trademark of NTT DATA CORPORATION.