3c905-tx installs with IRQ = 0
I am a wannabe new Debian user. I did a successful net install of
Potato some time ago on an old 486, but it was too slow to support a GUI.
Now I am attempting to do a net install of the current distribution of
Woody on a recent vintage 1.8 GHz Pentium 4 (ASUS P4B533 motherboard)
with a 3c905-tx NIC.
I cannot get the 3c905-tx to work at all. This is probably because it is
being configured to use IRQ 0. During boot from CD, or after installling
a minimal system, I get the message (approximately)
eth0: 3com 3c905c Toronado at 0xb400 IRQ 0
Warning: IRQ 0 is not likely to work
The warning is absolutely correct, of course.
The same computer/NIC/router works fine under Win98SE, either with DHCP
or manually configured.
The BIOS identifies as an Award Medallion BIOS v. 6.0.
It also outputs the identification Award P&P BIOS V1.0A.
The driver which supports the 3c905-tx apparently does not accept
parameters to specify IO address or IRQ.
I downloaded and burned the latest version of the BIOS (1014) from the
ASUS website. No change.
I tried disabling the on-board sound chip on the motherboard (I saw some
newsgroup items re interrupt conflicts between the 3c905-tx and sound
cards). No change.
I found an article on the 3com website describing a similar problem,
"Award BIOS 4.50g sets IRQ to 0". The solution described is to use the
BIOS setup screen to force the PCI slot with the 3c905-tx in it to IRQ
10. I have tried this and it makes no difference.
I have also tried moving the 3c905-tx to another slot.
Finally, I bought a Realtek RTL8139 NIC and tried installing it instead
of the 3c905-tx. I had similar problems, though I have not documented
my efforts as carefully as with the 3c905-tx card.
It looks to me like the Award P & P BIOS on the ASUS motherboard has
some major problem. Perhaps Windows does its own P & P allocation of
IRQs and thereby overcomes the problem.
Any suggestions would be gratefully received.
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