3COM 3C900 network problems

GENERAL Help
1

Hello all,

Just installed QNX 6.2.1. I am having problems getting my network card to work properly.

I start with

slay -f io-net

then

io-net -d el900 verbose=10 -p tcpip

sloginfo reveals an error, “Cannot find an active PHY”:

Time Sev Major Minor Args
Jan 20 16:43:36 5 10 0 devn-el900: Vendor Id.=0x10b7 Device Id.=0x9001 pci index=0x0000 Irq=0x0005

Jan 20 16:43:36 5 10 0 Caps (a6). Card is a 90X
Jan 20 16:43:36 5 10 0 media_options: e138
Jan 20 16:43:36 2 10 0 devn-el900: Cannot find an active PHY
Jan 20 16:43:36 5 10 0 Media Options: e138
Jan 20 16:43:36 5 10 0 Internal Config: 10302d8
Jan 20 16:43:36 3 14 0 Using pseudo random generator. See “random” option

I ask about this error because when I execute dhcp.client, nothing happens. If I use the GUI network settings tool, I get an “unable to reach DHCP server” error when I select DHCP and click “apply”.

Here is the info on my network card:

Class = Network (Ethernet)
Vendor ID = 10b7h, 3Com Corporation
Device ID = 9001h, 3C900-COMBO Fast Etherlink XL PCI Combo NIC
PCI index = 0h
Class Codes = 020000h
Revision ID = 0h
Bus number = 0
Device number = 20
Function num = 0
Status Reg = 200h
Command Reg = 107h
Header type = 0h Single-function
BIST = 0h Build-in-self-test not supported
Latency Timer = 40h
Cache Line Size= 0h
PCI IO Address = ee80h length 64 enabled
PCI Expansion ROM = ffac0000h length 65536 disabled
Max Lat = 8ns
Min Gnt = 3ns
PCI Int Pin = INT A
Interrupt line = 5

Any help is appreciated!

2

What does “nicinfo” say ? I have a feeling your “media rate” will be 0 ;)
cdm identified this problem with 3C900 years ago, don’t know if it is fixed.
Or maybe your problem is different.

3

Here’s the output from nicinfo:

3COM (90x) 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX Ethernet Controller
Physical Node ID … 00A024 D2CDAB
Current Physical Node ID … 00A024 D2CDAB
Media Rate … 0 kb/s half-duplex UTP
MTU … 1514
Lan … 0
I/O Port Range … 0xEE80 → 0xEEBF
Hardware Interrupt … 0x5
Promiscuous … Disabled
Multicast … Enabled

Total Packets Txd OK … 0
Total Packets Txd Bad … 0
Total Packets Rxd OK … 0
Total Rx Errors … 0

Total Bytes Txd … 0
Total Bytes Rxd … 0

Tx Collision Errors … 0
Tx Collisions Errors (aborted) … 0
Carrier Sense Lost on Tx … 0
FIFO Underruns During Tx … 0
Tx deferred … 0
Out of Window Collisions … 0
FIFO Overruns During Rx … 0
Alignment errors … 0
CRC errors … 0

4

It indeed has a Media Rate of 0.
Apparently, the QNX el900 driver doesn’t work with 3C900. It has a problem to detect the correct media rate.
What kind/speed of ethernet switch/hub do you have? Are you using CAT5 twisted pair cable?

5

Yeah, looks like the PHY isn’t supported. It might even say something along those lines on the output of sloginfo.

6

Don’t know the brand of hub since it’s locked away in the network hardware rack in our building. We are wired for 10/100 MB ethernet, and I am connected to the wall with twisted-pair cable. This board works fine under Linux and Windows, so I figure it’s the driver. Too bad. I’ve got an ISA bus NE2000 compatible board as well, so I guess I’ll switch to that.

Seems like this is the case; sloginfo output posted in my original question mentions something about PHY. I have no idea what that is, but I figure it’s bad to have an error. I’ll try again with the NE2000 board.

Thanks for you help!

7

Hi,
I have two 3COM cards in my PC and they work fine under QNXRTP.
Here is how I start io-net and drivers :

io-net
sleep 1
mount -Tio-net -opci=0x0 /lib/dll/devn-el900.so
mount -Tio-net -opci=0x1 /lib/dll/devn-el900.so
mount -Tio-net /lib/dll/npm-tcpip.so
waitfor /dev/socket
ifconfig en0 192.9.300.23 up
dhcp.client -ien1 &

This is a part of my rc.sysinit script. But make sure io-net was not started before.

Regards!
Kosta

8

I believe the problem is only for 3com 3c900. If you have 90X (where X != 0 ), it will work.