Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2006 15:51:14 +0200 (CEST) From: Vicknesan AYADURAI <vicknesan@bigfoot.com> To: FreeBSD-hardware <freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: PCMCIA networking failure going 5.4R-->6.1R Message-ID: <20060905154444.E2603@apu> In-Reply-To: <20060830080521.L715@apu> References: <20060830080521.L715@apu>
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Hi all, Am posting this 'solution' as a follow-up to my original question, which is now 'fixed'. After more Net-trawling, I found a similar problem described on the freebsd-acpi list, with a workaround: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-acpi/2006-June/002833.html Seems like there's some magic involved with IBM ThinkPads and PCI IRQ assignments. Anyway, having the following lines: > hw.cbb.start_memory=0xd8000 > hw.pci.link.LNKA.irq=11 > hw.pci.link.LNKB.irq=11 > hw.pci.link.LNKC.irq=11 > hw.pci.link.LNKD.irq=11 in my 6.1R /boot/loader.conf enabled both my PCMCIA cards to get assigned IRQ 11, and work without any hitches. Just a general FYI, vick On Wed, 30 Aug 2006, Vicknesan AYADURAI wrote: > Hi all, > > Have been wrestling a bizarre problem unsuccessfully for a week now and am > hoping someone on this list might be able to help. > > My home router is an old IBM Thinkpad 600 notebook, with two 3Com Megahertz > 589E PCMCIA ethernet cards - 1 linking to the Internet, and 1 to an in-home > 192.168.0/24 LAN. I believe this to be reliable, battle-tested hardware, and > everything, i.e., routing, NAT, DHCP, IPFW, etc., had been running smoothly > for months on FreeBSD-5.4R > > A week ago I did a fresh install of FreeBSD-6.1R and the problem with the > network cards appeared. Both PCMCIA cards are detected as ep0 and ep1 upon > bootup, and can be assigned their static IP addresses. However, the > networking on one of them is _extremely_ slow. > > Pinging a host at the 'other-end' of the ethernet link results in a cycle of > 10 packet coming in simultaneously in a burst, a pause for 10 seconds, > followed by the next 10 packets simultaneously, a further pause of 10 > seconds, etc., etc. > > I've determined that the problem is slot-dependent, as either card in this > slot exhibits this bursty/pause problem. > > However, and this is the 'bizarre' bit, booting up with a FreeSBIE CD > (running FreeBSD-5.3R) on the same hardware results in no problems with the > networking - on _both_ PCMCIA slots. > > Hence, the problem seems to be that a PCMCIA network card works with 5.XR but > not 6.1R. > > One difference I have noticed between the two RELEASEs is the card on the > 'dodgy' slot is detected as (from dmesg): > > ep1: <3Com Megahertz 589E> at port 0x110-0x11f irq 9 function 0 config 1 on > pccard1 > > when booted up with 6.1R, but 'irq 10' (instead of 9) when booted up with > 5.3R. > > I'm now suspecting that perhaps the hardware for the good and bad scenarios > may not be 100% identical as different IRQs are assigned with the different > releases to the network card on the 'dodgy' slot. 'vmstat -i' doesn't show > any IRQ collisions, but I'm suspecting that perhaps there's some problem with > the PC's IRQ 9 (?). > > What I've been trying to do in the last 24-hrs is to get a different IRQ > (i.e., not 9) assigned to the card in the 'dodgy' slot to test this > hypothesis out, but haven't been able to figure out how PCMCIA > IRQ-assignments are done in 6.1R. In the good old (pre-6.1R) days, IRQ > assignments could be assigned at the start of /etc/pccard.conf, but > pccard.conf doesn't seem to do much with 6.1R. > > Has anyone observed this behaviour before? Does the diagnosis sound remotely > plausible? If so, does anyone know how I can get a different IRQ assigned to > a PCMCIA card in a specific slot? > > Alternatively, any other ideas/tips/suggestions/words of comfort would be > also greatly appreciated :-) > > Regards, > vick > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hardware > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hardware-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > >
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