Andrew Morton

1. 3com 3c900b-tpc Ethernet Adapter (generic) Driver Vga
2. 3com 3c900b-tpc Ethernet Adapter (generic) Driver Adapter
3. 3com 3c900b-tpc Ethernet Adapter (generic) Driver Windows 7

30 April 2000

This document describes the usage and errata of the 3Com “Vortex” devicedriver for Linux, 3c59x.c.

EtherCD v5.4 Disk 1 of 2 for the 3C90x Adapter Family. The following Network Interface Cards are supported by this driver: 3C905B-TX, 3C905C-TX-M, 3C900B-TPO, 3C900B-FL(ST), 3C900B-COMBO, 3C905B.

Thank you for choosing Managed PC Boot Agent (MBA), the world's best-selling network preboot solution for PC networks. MBA is a package of multi-protocol firmware and software tools that enables the network administrator to remotely administer software, operating systems, and applications over the network, eliminating the need to visit the client's desktop in person. This package supports the following driver models: - 3Com EtherLink 10/100 PCI For Complete PC Management NIC (3C905C-TX) - 3Com 10/100 Mini PCI Ethernet Adapter - 3Com EtherLink 10/100 PCI Combo NIC (3C905B-COMBO) - 3Com EtherLink 100 PCI Fiber NIC (3C905B-FX) - 3Com EtherLink 10/100. TokenLink Velocity XL Adapter: Notes: driver tokenlink. 3C920B-EMB Integrated Fast Ethernet Controller Tornado Vendor Device PCI. 3c900B-TPC Etherlink XL. 3Com 3C900-TPO 10Mbps Ethernet Network Adapter / NIC - Brand New. These Etherlink NICs are guaranteed to work with every major PC/network operating system and any IBM-compatible PC with an available PCI slot. Built to last, they’ll work with a broad range of hubs and half- and full-duplex switches.

The driver was written by Donald Becker <becker@scyld.com>

Don is no longer the prime maintainer of this version of the driver.Please report problems to one or more of:

• Andrew Morton
• Netdev mailing list <netdev@vger.kernel.org>
• Linux kernel mailing list <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>

Please note the ‘Reporting and Diagnosing Problems’ section at the endof this file.

Since kernel 2.3.99-pre6, this driver incorporates the support for the3c575-series Cardbus cards which used to be handled by 3c575_cb.c.

This driver supports the following hardware:

• 3c590 Vortex 10Mbps
• 3c592 EISA 10Mbps Demon/Vortex
• 3c597 EISA Fast Demon/Vortex
• 3c595 Vortex 100baseTx
• 3c595 Vortex 100baseT4
• 3c595 Vortex 100base-MII
• 3c900 Boomerang 10baseT
• 3c900 Boomerang 10Mbps Combo
• 3c900 Cyclone 10Mbps TPO
• 3c900 Cyclone 10Mbps Combo
• 3c900 Cyclone 10Mbps TPC
• 3c900B-FL Cyclone 10base-FL
• 3c905 Boomerang 100baseTx
• 3c905 Boomerang 100baseT4
• 3c905B Cyclone 100baseTx
• 3c905B Cyclone 10/100/BNC
• 3c905B-FX Cyclone 100baseFx
• 3c905C Tornado
• 3c920B-EMB-WNM (ATI Radeon 9100 IGP)
• 3c980 Cyclone
• 3c980C Python-T
• 3cSOHO100-TX Hurricane
• 3c555 Laptop Hurricane
• 3c556 Laptop Tornado
• 3c556B Laptop Hurricane
• 3c575 [Megahertz] 10/100 LAN CardBus
• 3c575 Boomerang CardBus
• 3CCFE575BT Cyclone CardBus
• 3CCFE575CT Tornado CardBus
• 3CCFE656 Cyclone CardBus
• 3CCFEM656B Cyclone+Winmodem CardBus
• 3CXFEM656C Tornado+Winmodem CardBus
• 3c450 HomePNA Tornado
• 3c920 Tornado
• 3c982 Hydra Dual Port A
• 3c982 Hydra Dual Port B
• 3c905B-T4
• 3c920B-EMB-WNM Tornado

Module parameters¶

There are several parameters which may be provided to the driver whenits module is loaded. These are usually placed in /etc/modprobe.d/*.confconfiguration files. Example:

If you are using the PCMCIA tools (cardmgr) then the options may beplaced in /etc/pcmcia/config.opts:

The supported parameters are:

debug=N

3com 3c900b-tpc Ethernet Adapter (generic) Driver Vga

options=N1,N2,N3,…

Each number in the list provides an option to the correspondingnetwork card. So if you have two 3c905’s and you wish to providethem with option 0x204 you would use:

The individual options are composed of a number of bitfields whichhave the following meanings:

Possible media type settings

When generating a value for the ‘options’ setting, the above mediaselection values may be OR’ed (or added to) the following:

For example:

will force full-duplex 100base-TX, rather than allowing the usualautonegotiation.

global_options=N

full_duplex=N1,N2,N3…

Similar to bit 9 of ‘options’. Forces the corresponding card intofull-duplex mode. Please use this in preference to the optionsparameter.

In fact, please don’t use this at all! You’re better off gettingautonegotiation working properly.

global_full_duplex=N1

flow_ctrl=N1,N2,N3…

Use 802.3x MAC-layer flow control. The 3com cards only support thePAUSE command, which means that they will stop sending packets for ashort period if they receive a PAUSE frame from the link partner.

The driver only allows flow control on a link which is operating infull duplex mode.

This feature does not appear to work on the 3c905 - only 3c905B and3c905C have been tested.

The 3com cards appear to only respond to PAUSE frames which aresent to the reserved destination address of 01:80:c2:00:00:01. Theydo not honour PAUSE frames which are sent to the station MAC address.

rx_copybreak=M

The driver preallocates 32 full-sized (1536 byte) network buffersfor receiving. When a packet arrives, the driver has to decidewhether to leave the packet in its full-sized buffer, or to allocatea smaller buffer and copy the packet across into it.

This is a speed/space tradeoff.

The value of rx_copybreak is used to decide when to make the copy.If the packet size is less than rx_copybreak, the packet is copied.The default value for rx_copybreak is 200 bytes.

max_interrupt_work=N

hw_checksums=N1,N2,N3,…

Recent 3com NICs are able to generate IPv4, TCP and UDP checksumsin hardware. Linux has used the Rx checksumming for a long time.The “zero copy” patch which is planned for the 2.4 kernel seriesallows you to make use of the NIC’s DMA scatter/gather and transmitchecksumming as well.

The driver is set up so that, when the zerocopy patch is applied,all Tornado and Cyclone devices will use S/G and Tx checksums.

This module parameter has been provided so you can override thisdecision. If you think that Tx checksums are causing a problem, youmay disable the feature with hw_checksums=0.

If you think your NIC should be performing Tx checksumming and thedriver isn’t enabling it, you can force the use of hardware Txchecksumming with hw_checksums=1.

The driver drops a message in the logfiles to indicate whether ornot it is using hardware scatter/gather and hardware Tx checksums.

Scatter/gather and hardware checksums provide considerableperformance improvement for the sendfile() system call, but a smalldecrease in throughput for send(). There is no effect upon receiveefficiency.

compaq_ioaddr=N,compaq_irq=N,compaq_device_id=N

watchdog=N

enable_wol=N1,N2,N3,…

Enable Wake-on-LAN support for the relevant interface. DonaldBecker’s ether-wake application may be used to wake suspendedmachines.

Also enables the NIC’s power management support.

global_enable_wol=N

Media selection¶

A number of the older NICs such as the 3c590 and 3c900 series have10base2 and AUI interfaces.

Prior to January, 2001 this driver would autoeselect the 10base2 or AUIport if it didn’t detect activity on the 10baseT port. It would thenget stuck on the 10base2 port and a driver reload was necessary toswitch back to 10baseT. This behaviour could not be prevented with amodule option override.

Later (current) versions of the driver _do_ support locking of themedia type. So if you load the driver module with

it will permanently select the 10baseT port. Automatic selection ofother media types does not occur.

Transmit error, Tx status register 82¶

This is a common error which is almost always caused by another host onthe same network being in full-duplex mode, while this host is inhalf-duplex mode. You need to find that other host and make it run inhalf-duplex mode or fix this host to run in full-duplex mode.

As a last resort, you can force the 3c59x driver into full-duplex modewith

but this has to be viewed as a workaround for broken network gear andshould only really be used for equipment which cannot autonegotiate.

Additional resources¶

Details of the device driver implementation are at the top of the source file.

Additional documentation is available at Don Becker’s Linux Drivers site:

Donald Becker’s driver development site:

Donald’s vortex-diag program is useful for inspecting the NIC’s state:

Donald’s mii-diag program may be used for inspecting and manipulatingthe NIC’s Media Independent Interface subsystem:

Donald’s wake-on-LAN page:

3Com’s DOS-based application for setting up the NICs EEPROMs:

Autonegotiation notes¶

The driver uses a one-minute heartbeat for adapting to changes inthe external LAN environment if link is up and 5 seconds if link is down.This means that when, for example, a machine is unplugged from a hubbed10baseT LAN plugged into a switched 100baseT LAN, the throughputwill be quite dreadful for up to sixty seconds. Be patient.

Cisco interoperability note from Walter Wong <wcw+@CMU.EDU>:

On a side note, adding HAS_NWAY seems to share a problem with theCisco 6509 switch. Specifically, you need to change the spanningtree parameter for the port the machine is plugged into to ‘portfast’mode. Otherwise, the negotiation fails. This has been an issuewe’ve noticed for a while but haven’t had the time to track down.

Cisco switches (Jeff Busch <jbusch@deja.com>)

My “standard config” for ports to which PC’s/servers connect directly:

If autonegotiation is a problem, you may need to specify “speed100” and “duplex full” as well (or “speed 10” and “duplex half”).

WARNING: DO NOT hook up hubs/switches/bridges to thesespecially-configured ports! The switch will become very confused.

Reporting and diagnosing problems¶

Maintainers find that accurate and complete problem reports areinvaluable in resolving driver problems. We are frequently not able toreproduce problems and must rely on your patience and efforts to get tothe bottom of the problem.

If you believe you have a driver problem here are some of thesteps you should take:

• Is it really a driver problem?

  Eliminate some variables: try different cards, differentcomputers, different cables, different ports on the switch/hub,different versions of the kernel or of the driver, etc.

• OK, it’s a driver problem.

  You need to generate a report. Typically this is an email to themaintainer and/or netdev@vger.kernel.org. The maintainer’semail address will be in the driver source or in the MAINTAINERS file.

• The contents of your report will vary a lot depending upon theproblem. If it’s a kernel crash then you should refer to‘Reporting issues’.

  But for most problems it is useful to provide the following:

  • Kernel version, driver version

  • A copy of the banner message which the driver generates whenit is initialised. For example:

    eth0: 3Com PCI 3c905C Tornado at 0xa400, 00:50:da:6a:88:f0, IRQ 198K byte-wide RAM 5:3 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/Autonegotiate interface.MII transceiver found at address 24, status 782d.Enabling bus-master transmits and whole-frame receives.

    NOTE: You must provide the debug=2 modprobe option to generatea full detection message. Please do this:

  • If it is a PCI device, the relevant output from ‘lspci -vx’, eg:

  • A description of the environment: 10baseT? 100baseT?full/half duplex? switched or hubbed?

  • Any additional module parameters which you may be providing to the driver.

  • Any kernel logs which are produced. The more the merrier.If this is a large file and you are sending your report to amailing list, mention that you have the logfile, but don’t sendit. If you’re reporting direct to the maintainer then just sendit.

    To ensure that all kernel logs are available, add thefollowing line to /etc/syslog.conf:

    Then restart syslogd with:

    (The above may vary, depending upon which Linux distribution you use).

  • If your problem is reproducible then that’s great. Try thefollowing:
    1. Increase the debug level. Usually this is done via:
       1. modprobe driver debug=7
       2. In /etc/modprobe.d/driver.conf:options driver debug=7
    2. Recreate the problem with the higher debug level,send all logs to the maintainer.
    3. Download you card’s diagnostic tool from DonaldBecker’s website <http://www.scyld.com/ethercard_diag.html>.Download mii-diag.c as well. Build these.
       1. Run ‘vortex-diag -aaee’ and ‘mii-diag -v’ when the card isworking correctly. Save the output.
       2. Run the above commands when the card is malfunctioning. Sendboth sets of output.

3com 3c900b-tpc Ethernet Adapter (generic) Driver Adapter

Finally, please be patient and be prepared to do some work. You mayend up working on this problem for a week or more as the maintainerasks more questions, asks for more tests, asks for patches to beapplied, etc. At the end of it all, the problem may even remainunresolved.

3com 3c900b-tpc Ethernet Adapter (generic) Driver Windows 7