pcmcia network adapter periodic failure
I am recycling an old laptop (Chembook 9780) for a variety of "quietly
sit in the corner and compute" tasks. Unfortunately I am running into a
few problems.
For what it's worth, I've used Red Hat for a long time and switched to
Debian because it would boot on this laptop. Much to my delight, I'm
finding Debian to be wonderful most of the time especially when it comes
to adding new packages.
Problem No. 1: I'm using a 3Com 575 PCMCIA 10/100 ethernet adapter.
depending on load, eventually the ethernet interface "goes away". The
link light is still up but I cannot pass any traffic. when I force the
error, I noticed that the interface has multiple overrun and frame
errors. The error rates seem to be in the single digit range usually
but the interface locks up all the same. If I eject and then reinsert
the card, it works for a while and then stops.
I have tried multiple network drops and network cables with no luck. I
had this problem happened to me before with a much earlier version of
Red Hat and I didn't have time to do a diagnosis them except swapping
for a known good 575 card which didn't make a difference.
problem 2: this laptop has cooling fans. They go on when the machine
gets hot as they should. Unfortunately, they never shut off once they
go on. I want them to go off at the right time.
problem 3: this is probably more of an "Eric is new to Debian" problem.
I don't need a GUI most of the time so all I want the screen to do is
come up standard console mode and blank video when it's not being used.
do I need to muck with inittab or is there a utility for doing this?
many thanks in advance for any answers.
---eric
Reply to: