Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 14:20:10 -0400 From: Paul Mather <paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Netgear FA511 + Linksys BEFSR41 v.2 = 6.1-STABLE woes Message-ID: <1157048410.15393.60.camel@zappa.Chelsea-Ct.Org>
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Someone recently gave me a Linksys BEFSR41 v.2 10/100 four-port
switch/NAT router. I had previously been using an eight-port 10baseT
hub. To take advantage of the higher bandwidth now available on my LAN,
I bought some NICs from eBay to upgrade the 10baseT ones to 100baseT.
Unfortunately, I'm having problems with the Netgear FA511 Cardbus NIC I
bought for the Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop I'm using. Sometimes, transfer
speeds plummet (e.g., when doing an FTP across the LAN), and often it
will have problems configuring via DHCP during boot (with "dc0: watchdog
timeout" kernel messages appearing every so often during the process).
To get it to configure via DHCP when it acts up like this, I have to
eject and plug back in the card. Sometimes I have to do this several
times before the NIC finally is configured via DHCP. :-(
The trouble is, I don't know if the problem lies with the Netgear FA511
card or with the Linksys BEFSR41, or is a problem with the FreeBSD
driver. I am running 6.1-STABLE, rebuilt very recently.
When I plug in the Netgear FA511 I get the following console output:
cardbus0: Resource not specified in CIS: id=14, size=400
dc0: <Netgear FA511 10/100BaseTX> port 0xd000-0xd0ff mem 0xf6001000-0xf60013ff irq 11 at device 0.0 on cardbus0
miibus0: <MII bus> on dc0
ukphy0: <Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface> on miibus0
ukphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
pcconf -vl says the following about the card:
dc0@pci3:0:0: class=0x020000 card=0x511a1385 chip=0x19851317 rev=0x11 hdr=0x00
vendor = 'ADMtek Inc'
device = 'AN985 FastNIC CardBus 10/100 Fast Ethernet Adapter'
class = network
subclass = ethernet
The strange thing is that the MAC address of the card is not probed
successfully. I have an AN985-based Linksys LN100TX PCI NIC that
reports much the same information (minus the "cardbus0: ..." line, and
"dc0: <ADMtek AN985 10/100BaseTX> ..." instead of Netgear), but it also
reports "dc0: Ethernet address: 00:0c:41:21:..." after the ukphy0
information. I get no such line with the Netgear NIC. The "cardbus0:
Resource not specified in CIS: id=14, size=400" does look worrying.
The MAC address assigned to the card by the OS is 00:00:00:00:00:00, and
this is also the MAC address reported in Windows. Surely this can't be
right? The OUIs I could find assigned to Netgear are 00-09-5B,
00-0F-B5, 00-14-6C, and 00-18-4D; 00-00-00 is supposed to be Xerox. The
card appears to work in Windows, but sometimes has speed problems, as in
FreeBSD. Does the weird MAC address, along with the "cardbus0: Resource
not specified in CIS: id=14, size=400" indicate that perhaps the EEPROM
is faulty/incomplete, or could it be the FreeBSD dc driver can't
correctly probe the information? The Netgear FA511 is on the hardware
compatibility list for 6.1 as being fully supported; I checked before I
bought it.
On the other hand, the reason I wonder whether the problem lies with the
Linksys BEFSR41 router is that I also had problems with the 3Com 3C589C
EtherLink III 10baseT Cardbus NIC I formerly used with the laptop. The
3Com NIC worked fine with FreeBSD (using the ep driver). However, it
would often cause problems with the LAN when attached to the Linksys
BEFSR41 when multiple 100baseT devices were active. I have two desktop
systems using Intel PRO/100 PCI NICs (with the fxp driver) that would
suffer speed degradation problems during bulk transfers across the LAN
when the laptop was connected to it.
Does the Linksys BEFSR41 v.2 get muddled with autonegotiation? (It is
running 1.46.02, Aug 03 2004 firmware.) For example, I appear to have
better results in Windows with the Netgear FA511 if I force the media to
100baseT full-duplex, but if I try to do this in FreeBSD then the LED on
the Linksys indicating full duplex/collision does not illuminate (but
the link and 100baseT ones do). Furthermore, the NIC never gets
configured via DHCP; just endless occasional "dc0: watchdog timeout"
messages.
So, do I have a faulty Netgear FA511 Cardbus NIC? Is my Linksys BEFSR41
v.2 flaky? Is this just one of those deadly combinations (I don't have
problems when just the two fxp devices are connected to the LAN)? Will
a different Linksys firmware fix the problem (if so, which version)?
I'd love to know (and quickly, as I have to return the Netgear FA511 if
it is faulty).
Cheers,
Paul.
--
e-mail: paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu
"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
--- Frank Vincent Zappa
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