eth0 3Com 3C905 and 2.6.10 Problem

[theMidas]

I'm sitting here on my XP laptop wondering what happened to my NIC after updgrading to 2.6.10 on my PC. I'm also sitting here thinking how much I like Fedora better now that I've been using it almost exclusively at home for the past 3 months :)

It had been working OK prior to my last round of yum updates which included the new kernel.

Now, as I boot I get the following message


3c59X Does Not Seem to be Present.....

Through KDE I go to my Network Configuration to verify Hardware information and it lists my NIC although it is inactive and I cannot activate it. PCI information through System Manager shows that the device is recognized and I verified IRQ settiings.

Here's the error message I get when trying to initilaize the card.

Command failed: /sbin/modprobe 3c95x irq=3

Output:
FATAL: Error inserting 3c59x (/lib/modules/2.6.10-1.741_FC3/kernel/drivers/net/3c59x.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

I should also mention that the indicator lights on the NIC itself and my switch show that I have connectivity.

As always any assistance would be greatly appreciated! :D

[Void Main]

The easiest thing you can probably do is install a previous kernel and use it until the next kernel comes out and hope the 3c59x module isn't broken in it too. What if you just type "/sbin/modprobe 3c59x" (without the irq=3), do you get the same error?

[theMidas]

I tried running without the irq info and I get the same error. :confused:

I've thought about dropping back to the previous kernel, but I have a couple issues with that... one I don't know how to do that :) and two I think I've worked through most of my 2.6.10 issues and would hate to retreat now... especially after what my NVIDIA made me go through :)

I also found this entry in my system log:

kernel: 3c59x: Unknown parameter 'irq'

How can you tell if you have conflicting devices trying to use the same IRQ? The NIC should be PnP shouldn't it?

[Void Main]

I install new kernels with "apt" and it doesn't remove my old one when I do, which is the behavior I prefer for this exact reason.

This might be an easy fix. Edit your /etc/modprobe.conf and see if you can find a line for your driver and check if it has the "irq=3" param. If it does make a backup copy of the file and remove the "irq=3" param and then try and load the module again (modprobe modulename). Sounds like there was a change in the module and it no longer accepts the irq= param but your configuration is still passing it. Just speculation until I find hard evidence. Also this may be in your pcmcia configuration if this is a PCMCIA card (see /etc/pcmcia directory).

To install an older kernel (and keep your new one) just download the kernel RPM and "rpm -iv kernel-xxxxx.rpm". You can find the kernel RPMs here:

http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/3/i386/RPMS.updates
or here:
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/3/i386/

[theMidas]

There was a line in my modprobe.conf that read:

options 3c59x irq=3

I removed the irq setting and reloaded the module with the same results, refering to an error on line 8 of my .conf file... so I removed that line entirely and *viola* my NIC is back up and running.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

[theMidas]

Just to clarify, line 8 for me refered to 'options 3c59x....'

[jtang613]

I can't speak for the kernel you downloaded, but both 2.6.10-737 and 2.6.10-741 both detected my 3C905B-TX (3c59x) just fine. However, these kernels didn't support hardware sensors the way I needed so I ended up compiling my own kernel instead anyway. I'd recommend try this.