Problem with 2940 and 3c905

tilo winkler (winkler@snafu.owl.de)
Tue, 8 Apr 1997 22:09:32 +0200 (MET DST)


A couple of days ago I bought a 3com Fast Etherlink XL (3c905-TX), but it
wont work.

This is what happens:

When I plug in the Ethernet Card, Linux wont boot anymore. All Cards are
detected (including the 3com). The Kernel mounts the root-Filesystem and
then I get the following errors:

EXT2-fs error (device 08:06): ext2_find_entry : bad entry in directory
#12: rec_len is smaller than minimal - offset=240, inode=0, rec_len=0,
name_len = 0
<same error again>
Unable to open initial console.
<above EXT2-error follows twice>

Thats it. System is locked up.

Some more information:

Computer is a p60 with an AmiBios, Adaptec 2940 (Bios rev 1.23), Matrox
Millenium and Teles 16.3 ISDN adaptor. Kernel is 2.0.29 with the 3c59x.c
patch from Donald Becker (I tried all three I had access to: 3c59x.c from
Dec96, 3c59x.c from Jan 97 and boomerang.c from Dec 96).

What I have tried:

I tried all the pci Cards in all the different slots.
Tried booting _without_ a 3com driver at all. Same error.
Different IRQs and IO ports.
A kernel without ISDN driver.
The 3c905 runs thru the 3com (DOS-)testsuite without errors.

Without the Ethernet adaptor the system runs for months without problems.

I find it interesting that the kernel itself is loaded from the same SCSI
disk by lilo.

Is there anything else I could try? Is anyone running a 3c905 and a 2940
successfully in one computer?

-winkler-