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Re: PCMCIA network cards and the ThinkPad 770



* Paul King <pking123@sympatico.ca>, 2002-04-07 11:33 -0500:

Paul,

PCMCIA can be frustrating, but don't give up now :)
Unfortunately, I'm no crack either!

> I have a used ThinkPad 770 on which I have Debian Potato, 
> running a 2.2.17 stock kernel. The version of the PCMCIA-cs 
> that I am using is 3.1.x from the potato distribution CD, and 
> the documentation with this card says that the minimum version 
> should be 2.9.2.  The PCMCIA card I have is a Linksys 
> EtherFast 10/100 model PCMPC100, which is listed in the 
> recommended hardware for pcmcia-cs. The error from my system 
> log says "Unable to read hardware net address" with no further 
> detail. This error is not accounted for in the PCMCIA-HOWTO.

Hmm, I would try upgrade to the recent potato version w/ kernel
2.2.19 and the accompagnying pcmcia modules and -cs, there are
security issues with earlier kernels. 

> The driver loads with a high tone, then a low tone. I am aware 
> that this is supposed to be bad news.
[...]
> my card is indeed NE2000 Compatible. "cardctl ident" (below) 
> gives the correct information.

NE2000 comp. is usually very good.

> /etc/pcmcia/config.opts had the line:
>      include port 0x100-0x4ff, port 0x1000-0x17ff
> This generated errors in the system log: During the memory 
> scan, four regions of memory were excluded within the range of 
> 0x100-0x4ff. So, I got rid of that region and left it as:
>      include port 0x1000-0x17ff
> without any complaints from the kernel or software after 
> restarting the /etc/init.d/pcmcia script. Nevertheless, that 
> did not change the error "Unable to read hardware net 
> address", which persisted, but at least it got rid of the 
> exclusions. These exclusions were (if this means anyting to 
> anybody): 0x15e8-0x15ef, 0x200-0x207, 0x200-0x22f, and 0x388-
> 0x4d7. 

The beginning of /etc/pcmcia/config.opts reads
--------
# System resources available for PCMCIA devices
#
include port 0x100-0x4ff, port 0x1000-0x17ff
include memory 0xc0000-0xfffff
include memory 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff, memory 0x60000000-0x60ffffff
#
# Extra port range for IBM Token Ring
#
include port 0xa00-0xaff
--------

I don't recall where I found that, but it works for me(TM)

> In the Debian way of doing things, I cannot find any place 
> where the PCMCIA, PCIC, and PCIC_OPTS variables are set, as 
> recommended in the PCMCIA-HOWTO. Setting PCIC (a "mandatory" 
> setting, according to the HOWTO) in /etc/pcmcia/config.opts 
> has no effect on the error "Unable to read hardware net 
> address".

Those variables are set in

/etc/pcmcia.conf

according to /usr/doc/pcmcia-cs/notes.Debian.gz

-Andre

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