[ltp] Netgear FA410TX problem/solution

[Vivek Dasmohapatra]

I recently bought a Netgear FA410TXC PCMCIA 10/100 ethernet card: 
The pcnet_cs driver detects the card Ok, and the link lights on the dongle
and the hub both turn on, `cardctl status n` and `cardctl ident n` show
the correct info, as far as I can tell.

However, in /var/log/messages, I get the following:

Dec 12 22:21:43 narf kernel: eth0: NE2000 Compatible: io 0x300, irq 5,
hw_addr 00:E0:98:88:DD:5C
Dec 12 22:21:44 narf kernel: eth0: found link beat
Dec 12 22:21:45 narf kernel: eth0: lost link beat
Dec 12 22:22:44 narf kernel: eth0: Tx timed out, cable problem? TSR=0x42, ISR=0x0, t=867.
Dec 12 22:23:04 narf kernel: eth0: Tx timed out, cable problem? TSR=0x42, ISR=0x0, t=2000.
Dec 12 22:23:14 narf kernel: eth0: Tx timed out, cable problem? TSR=0x42, ISR=0x0, t=1000.
Dec 12 22:23:24 narf kernel: eth0: Tx timed out, cable problem? TSR=0x42, ISR=0x0, t=1000.

and so on.

After much cursing, swearling, thinking, and pummelling the furniture in
frustration, someone suggested that maybe the card was failing to
autodetect the link speed/duplex-ness. This seemed to fit the facts, so I
started looking for a way to set the media type on the link. [eg ifconfig
eth0 media 10baseT]. Unfortunately, this was reported as being
'unsupported'. After more cursing and trawling the web, I finally found a
program, written by Jochen Friedrich, called fa_select, which bludgeoned
the card into submissionand let me set the link speed/type by hand. This
turned out to do the trick.

If anyone has a Netgear FA410TXC, and is experiencing the same problem,
you can find fa_select at:

http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/HyperNews/get/pcmcia/network.html

or 

http://www.eh3.com/fa_select.c

Hope this is of help to someone.

-- 
Vivek

----- The Linux ThinkPad mailing list -----
The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
http://www.bm-soft.com/~bm/tp_mailing.html