[PLUG] nic-3c59x

Jason R. Martin nsxfreddy at gmail.com
Mon Nov 7 18:55:06 UTC 2005


On 11/7/05, Vram <lamsokvr at xprt.net> wrote:
> HI
>
> I am running    2.6.12-9-k7-smp
>
>
>
> My NIC card is 3c59x Vortex
>
> The kernel will not load it...
>
> Modules that try to load. are
>
> 3c59x not used
>
> mii.  which is used by 3c59x...  <which is not used>
>
> I can't do an insmod 3c59x..Complains.. No such device..
>
> The problem is.. for some reason the card has no MAC address..
>
> Earlier kernels just complained
>
> loaded the driver and didn't come up
>
> I could change the MAC address, by hand  and
> then bring the card up..
>
>
> This kernel will not let me do that...
>
> How do I get around this??

What does lspci show for the PCI ID for the 3Com?  I have a 3Com NIC
that doesn't have a MAC address either, and the same card also comes
up with a PCI ID of 0xffff:

0000:00:13.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905 100BaseTX [Boomerang]
0000:00:14.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation: Unknown device ffff (rev 78)

Notice the top one is working fine (lspci -n shows the PCI ID for that
one is 0x9050).  If that's the case for you the 3c59x driver won't
recognize the device without hacking the driver source to "recognize"
0xffff as one of the devices it supports.  To do that you need to know
EXACTLY what the card is, to make sure the driver uses the right
features.  My two cards aren't the same, so it took a while to figure
out what the bottom one is supposed to be.

I'd bet the flash that stores the MAC address and such is fried.  If
it's for anything production you'd probably better buy a new card :-(

Jason



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