Bug 81043 – kernel 2.6 versions less than 2.6.10 and greater than 2.6.5 fail to load the 3com driver on cards with no HW mac address.

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Release Media

[Description Matthew Gregory Sr. 2005-02-06 16:28:26 UTC]

All gentoo livecds which use kernel 2.6 fail to load the 3c59x drivers for cards which have a zapped EEPROM or no HW mac address pre-configured.  This is a documented issue and has been fixed in kernels 2.6.10 and higher.  Kernel version 2.5 still works, but I've heard reports the problem exists in kernel 2.5.

The fix is pretty easy: use the newer kernel version (2.6.10) on the livecd or patch the current kernel versions on the livecd.

I'm building a newer kernel on my system to ensure that this will fix the issue.

It is characterised by the following error in dmesg:

<3>*** EEPROM MAC address in invalid.
<3>3c59x: vortex_probe1 fails.  Returns -22
<4>3c59x: probe of 0000:00:03.0 failed with error -22

I've verified the error on two separate machines I have just set up.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Get a 3com card with no EEPROM preset, zapped or cleaned (characterized by no HW mac addresss)
2. Attempt to boot any 2.6 kernel < 2.6.10
3. Attempt to load the 3c59x driver.

Actual Results:  
<3>*** EEPROM MAC address in invalid.
<3>3c59x: vortex_probe1 fails.  Returns -22
<4>3c59x: probe of 0000:00:03.0 failed with error -22

Expected Results:  
3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
02:05.0: 3Com PCI 3c905C Tornado at 0xc400. Vers LK1.1.16

cdimage root # lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-760 MP [IGD4-2P] System
Controller (rev 11)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-760 MP [IGD4-2P] AGP Bridge
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [Opus] ISA (rev 05)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [Opus] IDE (rev 04)
00:07.3 Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [Opus] ACPI (rev 03)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [Opus] PCI (rev 05)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 0343 (rev a1)
02:00.0 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [Opus] USB (rev 07)
02:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10)
02:05.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)
02:08.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
02:08.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
02:08.2 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 04)

cdimage root # ifconfig eth0
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00  
          inet addr:10.20.30.103  Bcast:10.20.30.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::200:ff:fe00:0/10 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:106294 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:1 frame:0
          TX packets:61062 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:135524490 (129.2 Mb)  TX bytes:5379501 (5.1 Mb)
          Interrupt:18 Base address:0xc400

[Comment 1 Chris Gianelloni (RETIRED) 2005-03-06 16:36:51 UTC]

Have a fix?

[Comment 2 Chris Gianelloni (RETIRED) 2005-03-28 08:20:21 UTC]

This should be fixed in 2005.0