Re: Problems with DIGITAL 21143 Ethernet Controller

[Urs Traber <urs.traber@swissonline.ch>]

On Dec 6, 1:10 am, Ian Las <ia...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Yes, I tried the de4x5 driver - de4x3 was a misspelling.Did some more tests and found strange behaviour :
>
> If the network cable is unplugged at startup it is possible to establish a working connection with the de4x5 driver but only at 10Mb/sec.
> Kernel 2.4.35 and 2.6.22 seem to give the best results.
> It does not work if the cable is connected during startup and also the tulip driver does not work on the Alpha.
>
> But on the i86 it is just the opposite - the tulip works perfect whereas the de4x5 driver crashes the system.
> Thanks, Ian

I can remember having experienced some issues/influences with what is
set in the ewaX_mode SRM variable of the ethernet adapters, but I
can't remember which one it was and what driver/kernel I used at that
time (might have been 2.2.x kernels). You might try to use another
value your ewa's mode. For DE500-BA adapters I have currently set it
to "Auto-Negotiate" and for DECchip 21040 adapter to "Twisted-Pair".
You might try others like

>>>set ewb0_mode help
bad value - valid selections:
        Twisted-Pair
        Full Duplex, Twisted-Pair
        AUI
        BNC
        Fast
        FastFD (Full Duplex)
        Auto-Negotiate

My machine's network cables are always connected and SRM Auto-
Negotiate works quite well during startup.

Urs