From owner-freebsd-hardware  Tue Sep  8 06:06:28 1998
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From: Bill Paul <wpaul>
Message-Id: <199809081306.GAA26225@hub.freebsd.org>
Subject: Re: Slow 3C905A-TX under -SNAP
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980908210541.00955500@studentmail.dis.unimelb.edu.au> from Kevin Lam at "Sep 8, 98 09:05:41 pm"
To: kevla@studentmail.dis.unimelb.edu.au (Kevin Lam)
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 06:06:21 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: freebsd-hardware
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> At 00:38 9/8/98 -0700, Mike Smith wrote:
> >It would be useful to start by seeing the interface stats ('netstat 
> >-i') with the 905, in case you're seeing lots of noise.  Also the 
> >output of 'ifconfig xl0'.
> 
> Firstly, thanks to all concerned for the swift and timely response.. 
> 
> *sheepish grin*
> 
> But the problem seems to have mysteriously solved itself without operator
> intervention. The only things that changed during this time were four
> hours.. and that was it. No kernel changes, no driver changes on either
> end, both systems up throughout the four hours. 

The symptoms you described sound a lot like the the 3c905's duplex mode
wasn't set to match that of the NIC on the other side. In your first
message, you showed the following:

> xl0: autoneg complete, link status good

This is actually wrong: it's supposed to tell you the speed and duplex
mode that was selected on this same line. The fact that it didn't means
that the duplex setting was probably programmed incorrectly by the driver.

Sometimes, the 3c905-TX adapters take too long to finish autonegotiation;
the driver only waits about 3 seconds for it to complete, and in some cases
this isn't long enough. The latest driver revision in -current waits 5
seconds, which seems to work better.

As a workaround, you can use ifconfig to force the adapter into a given
mode so that it will work correctly with its link partner. To select
10Mbps/half-duplex, use:

# ifconfig xl0 media 10baseT/UTP mediaopt half-duplex

For 100Mbps/full-duplex:

# ifconfig xl0 media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex

You can use other combinations as well.

-Bill

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