Pb with 3Com CardBus Ethernet adapter

[Christian Casimir]

I thought this cold be useful for a number of laptop users having 
problems with their 3Com Ethernet adapter to find this in the archives. 
It makes me say that some more drivers could be added to Ubuntu's 
kernel. See if you find it relevant or not...

Please note, I still need some help to fix this problem of mine ! Please 
see end of message ! ;-) Thanks !


IBM Thinkpad X20 (2662 37G) Laptop
Pentium III 6OOMHz
128KB SDRAM 100MHz (SODIMM 144 broches)
20GB IDE HDD
ATI RAGE MOBILITY M-AGP 2x
Cirrus Logic CS 4281
Modem 56K 3Com Mini PCI
Ethernet Adapter 3Com 10/100 Mini PCI
USB CDR/W  ASUS CRW-5232AS
USB TEAC (Toshiba) PA3043U-1FDD

Modem Routeur ADSL Olitec SX200 (connected to my laptop via a switch
Unex Nextswitch SDO50s 10/100 ethernet switch)


The problem occurs during the second stage of installation.
On "Configuring Ethernet Interfaces", I get :

> eth0: command 0x5800 did not complete ! Status=0xffff
> eth0: command 0x2804 did not complete ! Status=0xffff

Then, I get the following messages, on and on (unless I Ctrl-Del the
process) :

eth0: command 0x3002 did not complete ! Status=0xffff
0: @c52bc200 length 8000002a status 0000002a
1: @c52bc2a0 length 8000002a status 0000002a
2: @c52bc340 length 8000002a status 0000002a
3: @c52bc3e0 length 8000002a status 0000002a
4: @c52bc480 length 8000002a status 0000002a
5: @c52bc520 length 80000048 status 00000048
6: @c52bc5c0 length 8000002a status 0000002a
7: @c52bc660 length 8000002a status 0000002a
8: @c52bc700 length 8000002a status 0000002a
9: @c52bc7a0 length 80000048 status 00000048
10: @c52bc840 length 8000002a status 0000002a
11: @c52bc8e0 length 8000002a status 0000002a
12: @c52bc980 length 8000002a status 0000002a
13: @c52bca20 length 8000002a status 0000002a
14: @c52bcac0 length 80000048 status 00000048
15: @c52bcb60 length 8000002a status 0000002a
eth0: command 0x5800 did not complete ! Status=0xffff
eth0: transmit timed out, tx_status ffstatus ffff.
diagnostics: net ffff media ffff dma ffffffff fifo ffff
eth0: Transmitter encountered 16 collisions -- network cable problem ?
eth0: Interrupt posted but not delivered -- IRQ blocked by another device ?
flags; bus-master 1, dirty 0(0) current 16(0)
Transmit list ffffffff vs. c52bc200


If I uninstall the ethernet device from the Ethernet Configuration
Panel, every goes smoothly. No need to say I just can't do without an
ethernet connection (that means no internet connection form me).

When I do lspci :  0000:00:0a.0 Ethernet controller : 3Com Corporation 
3c556B Cardbus [Tornado] (rev20)

When I do dmesg :

PCI: Enabling device 0000:00:0a.0 (0000 -> 0003)
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:0a.0[A] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
0000:00:0a.0: 3Com PCI 3c556B Laptop Hurricane at 0x2000. Vers LK1.1.19
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:0a.0 to 64
   ***WARNING*** No MII transceivers found!

So, I went to see what www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html had to teach 
me. And that's where my incompetence starts ! I need some help to figure 
out what to do exactly from now. Here is what they say :


"CardBus cards

The "3c59x.c" driver source supports the 3Com CardBus Ethernet adapters. 
The driver must either be compiled with pci-scan support, or be compiled 
with the -DCARDBUS flag. If using the -DCARDBUS flag, the resulting 
driver binary differs from the PCI version and may only be used with the 
user-level PCMCIA package. The suggested compile command is at the 
bottom of the file. Additional directions are included with the PCMCIA 
package."

Now then... I've never compiled anything, and on top of that, I think I 
read gcc wasn't on the Ubuntu CD. I could download it with apt-get 
install... but I have no internet connection ! ;-) Unless I knew the 
exact url, in which case I could download it from Windows. But then, I 
have no idea what to do once I get the package on my HDD... I definitely 
am a newbie !

What do you suggets I should do ?

Thanks for reading me to the end ! ;-)

Christian C.