Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : 2 pci nics, lock up during daemon init (in freesco)


YaRness
08-27-2001, 10:06 PM
i don't think the problem is directly related to freesco, but of course any familiarity might help.

what i've got in this box is two pci nics, different brands (both ne2000 compatible, i think one is a at2000t pnp and the other is a trend (tci-p/w or tpci/w or something like that). i'm fairly sure i've got the software disk for at least one of them.

linux finds both nics fine, puts them on eth0 and eth1. they are both on irq 9 though, which i'm not very clear about though i think that's supposed to be OK for PCI periphs. they are also set to I/O addresses that are VERY close together (0xfce0 and 0xfcc0), which i don't know if that is OK for PCI periphs again.

i think it hangs a bit after the DHCP daemon successfully initializes attached to eth0, and then whatever daemon listens to the internal network on eth1 starts.

when i was testing it off the network, it would hang trying to initialize DHCP through the first nic ("Waiting for DHCPOFFER on eth0" cuz it wasn't attached to the cable modem), but i could switch to another console (alt-f2) and log in, mess with stuff, yada yada yada.

when i finally hooked it up to the cable modem, it would finish the DHCP daemon, finish starting services, and present a login prompt on the first console. but either immediately or very shortly afterward, the keyboard would quit responding; not even settting scroll or numlock would work, no three-finger salute, nada. if i left it sitting there for a few minutes the box would just shut itself off, and not even the power button would get it back on until i completely unplugged it and let it sit for a moment.

i'm fairly sure this indicates the interrupt handler going boink. i'm not sure if i should set something in the bios (didn't see a lot of options there) or try and see if i have a disk with the diagnostic software for one of the nics so i can maybe force it to take a certain set of resources. or maybe there's something in linux (freesco flavored) that i need to change.

any fingers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. i'll try the freesco board if i get no hits here, but i get the feeling it's a distro-independent problem.

YaRness
08-28-2001, 08:22 AM
bumpety bump.

The Whizzard
08-28-2001, 12:33 PM
Using the same IRQ for both is fine, as was on my setup. The I/O addresses are not good. Yes, they are too close, interfering with each other. Would be good idea to take one of them out of PnP mode and set it manually, possibly both.
You might have the setup disk for one? If you don't, you should be able to D/L it from the manufactures website as well for the second NIC. Popular I/O assignments would be 0x200 and 0x240, respectavly. You also might have to assign diferent IRQ's when not using PnP. 3 and 7 are also popular. Just make sure they are not interfering with other devices.

Sound cards usually use I/O 0x200+ , 0x5??+ for MIDI and IRQ 7. LPT uses IRQ 7 or IRQ 9(unsure of I/O). Serial ports use IRQ 3 and IRQ 4(also unsure of I/O). Video cards use IRQ 11(only needed for hardware features)Since this is a freesco router, it would be safe to disable/remove what is not needed.(even video, as you have the webmin at port 82 for starting/stopping/restarting services and other info which can be accessed by a webbrowser on another PC)

[ 28 August 2001: Message edited by: The Whizzard ]

YaRness
08-28-2001, 03:34 PM
i/o addresses. gotcha.

guess from the way ms windows sets i/o address ranges that they were too close together. i will get on that later this week, thanks.

i have almost everythin disabled/removed in this box. it's got 16 mb of ram, a 500 meg hdd (smallest oldest one i had), crappiest vid card i could find, and the two nics and a keyboard. also a 14 inch monitor. i have a bunch of old stuff in the drive bays (tape backups, old cd-roms) but they are just filling in space cuz i don't have those plastic cover thingies.

YaRness
08-29-2001, 08:20 AM
well, found out the pci cards i had in it, you couldn't change the default resources. after fumbling with an ISA card, i got another PCI card that not only had different default resources, but you could also change it to jumperless (non-pnp) mode and set the resources (maybe i just missed an option to do that with the other ones? i dunno), so everything is cool now :D