Problems using two Cardbus 3Com 3C575CT NICs (xl driver) on two different laptops

[Derek Johnson <derekjohnson01_(_at_)_yahoo_(_dot_)_com>]

I am trying to use 2 3C575CT-D1 Cardbus NICs on x86 laptops to build
some
OpenBSD 3.5 firewalls and am encountering several problems which I
believe
to be bugs.  The problems have been seen on 3.5 GENERIC and custom
kernels.  Machine info and dmesg output below.  Please correspond via
e-mail if clarification, testing/debugging information is needed.

I get fatal xl "watchdog timeout" errors in multiple circumstances
which do not seem to be due to the standard reasons give on the misc@
mailing
list before.  The problems occur on two different laptops, an NEC Versa
6230 P233 MMX and a Dell Inspiron 3800 PIII 600.

*Problem 1: On both laptops, having both 3Com NICs inserted prior to
booting results in "xl1 watchdog timeout" messages once the kernel is
loaded.  The xl1 interface is very poorly responsive at this point,
with high packet loss, and does not answer requests to running daemons
such as sshd or ftpd.

The workaround for Problem 1 is to leave just one card inserted prior
to boot, and hot-insert the other card after booting.

*Problem 2: One of the interfaces has to be forced using the "media
10baseT" option, or it will incessantly generate "watchdog timeout"
errors and be unresponsive.  On the NEC, xl0, the internal network
interface, had to be forced.  On the Dell, xl1, the broadband adapter
interface, had to be forced.  In both cases, the autodetection
correctly identifies the link type, but nonetheless forcing the media
type is the only thing which gets the relevant interface to properly
work.

*Problem 3: Once forced up and operational, the interfaces are
unreliable.  On the NEC, within a few hours of heavy use as a pf
firewall, either "xl0 watchdog timeout" or "xl1 watchdog timeout"
errors occur (have not been able to correlate which one gives the error
with any internal traffic patterns), at which point the interface in
question becomes unresponsive.  These problems were not seen on the
Dell, but I was only able to test for a limited amount of time and do
not have the ability to test with it again immediately.

The two laptops I have tried are:

-NEC Versa 6230: Pentium MMX 233, '430TX chipset, TI-1130 Cardbus
controller, 64 MB RAM
and
-Dell Inspiron 3800: PIII 600, 'BX chipset, TI-1225 Cardbus controller,
128 MB RAM

Cards and laptops are known good.

Sample boot-time dmesg output is provided below.

One interface (xl1) is connected to the broadband modem, which runs at
10 mbit, half-duplex.  The other interface (xl0) is connected to a
10/100 switch.

Other diagnostic steps taken:

-Swapping dongles, swapping for identical 3C575CT-D1s,
swapping for different 3C575CT revisions, ethernet cables, ethernet
switches, etc.

-Changing "Plug and Play aware OS" in the BIOS.  Either way, it does
not seem to change the outcome on this problem.

-Changing the pcibios flags in UKC on boot, trying 1, 2, 4, and 8 all
to no avail (most of these flags just end up causing problems such as
devices not actually getting mapped).

-Building a custom kernel with all devices except the ones actually
on the laptop taken out.  Same behavior.

-Using Linux with both cards, with both cards bound to the same IP
addresses as with OBSD -- there are no issues doing this and
performance is OK.

[NEC Versa 6230 -- does not include log of "watchdog timeout" messages,
just provides the machine information]
/bsd: OpenBSD 3.5 (GENERIC) #34: Mon Mar 29 12:24:55 MST 2004
/bsd:    
deraadt_(_at_)_i386_(_dot_)_openbsd_(_dot_)_org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
/bsd: cpu0: Intel Pentium/MMX ("GenuineIntel" 586-class) 233 MHz
/bsd: cpu0: FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,MCE,CX8,MMX
/bsd: cpu0: F00F bug workaround installed
/bsd: real mem  = 66629632 (65068K)
/bsd: avail mem = 55681024 (54376K)
/bsd: using 838 buffers containing 3432448 bytes (3352K) of memory
/bsd: mainbus0 (root)
/bsd: bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+(00) BIOS, date 1///2/00, BIOS32 rev. 0
@ 0xfdb80
/bsd: apm0 at bios0: Power Management spec V1.2
/bsd: apm0: AC on, battery charge unknown
/bsd: pcibios0 at bios0: rev. 2.1 @ 0xf0000/0x10000
/bsd: pcibios0: PCI IRQ Routing Table rev. 1.0 @ 0xf5c60/96 (4 entries)
/bsd: pcibios0: PCI Interrupt Router at 000:07:0 ("Intel 82371 ISA and
IDE" rev 0x00)
/bsd: pcibios0: PCI bus #2 is the last bus
/bsd: bios0: ROM list: 0xc0000/0xc000
/bsd: pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (bios)
/bsd: pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 "Intel 82439TX System" rev 0x01
/bsd: vga1 at pci0 dev 2 function 0 "Neomagic Magicgraph NM2160" rev
0x00
/bsd: wsdisplay0 at vga1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
/bsd: wsdisplay0: screen 1-5 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
/bsd: cbb0 at pci0 dev 3 function 0 "Texas Instruments PCI1131 CardBus"
rev 0x01: irq 11
/bsd: cbb1 at pci0 dev 3 function 1 "Texas Instruments PCI1131 CardBus"
rev 0x01: irq 11
/bsd: pcib0 at pci0 dev 7 function 0 "Intel 82371AB PIIX4 ISA" rev 0x01
/bsd: pciide0 at pci0 dev 7 function 1 "Intel 82371AB IDE" rev 0x01:
DMA, channel 0 wired to compatibility, channel 1 wired to compatibility
/bsd: wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <HITACHI_DK226A-32U>
/bsd: wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 3091MB, 6332256 sectors
/bsd: wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2
/bsd: pciide0: channel 1 ignored (disabled)
/bsd: uhci0 at pci0 dev 7 function 2 "Intel 82371AB USB" rev 0x01: irq
10
/bsd: usb0 at uhci0: USB revision 1.0
/bsd: uhub0 at usb0
/bsd: uhub0: Intel UHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1
/bsd: uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
/bsd: "Intel 82371AB Power Mgmt" rev 0x01 at pci0 dev 7 function 3 not
configured
/bsd: cardslot0 at cbb0 slot 0 flags 0
/bsd: cardbus0 at cardslot0: bus 1 device 0 cacheline 0x0, lattimer
0x20
/bsd: pcmcia0 at cardslot0
/bsd: cardslot1 at cbb1 slot 1 flags 0
/bsd: cardbus1 at cardslot1: bus 2 device 0 cacheline 0x0, lattimer
0x20
/bsd: pcmcia1 at cardslot1
/bsd: isa0 at pcib0
/bsd: isadma0 at isa0
/bsd: pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60/5
/bsd: pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
/bsd: pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
/bsd: wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0
/bsd: pms0 at pckbc0 (aux slot)
/bsd: pckbc0: using irq 12 for aux slot
/bsd: wsmouse0 at pms0 mux 0
/bsd: pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
/bsd: midi0 at pcppi0: <PC speaker>
/bsd: sysbeep0 at pcppi0
/bsd: lpt0 at isa0 port 0x378/4 irq 7
/bsd: npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0/16: using exception 16
/bsd: pccom0 at isa0 port 0x3f8/8 irq 4: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
/bsd: fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0/6 irq 6 drq 2
/bsd: fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
/bsd: isapnp0 at isa0 port 0x279: read port 0x37f
/bsd: "ESS ES1869 Plug and Play AudioD, ESS0006, , " at isapnp0 port
0x800/8 not configured
/bsd: ess0 at isapnp0 "ESS ES1869 Plug and Play AudioD, ESS1869, , "
port 0x220/16,0x388/4,0x330/2 irq 5 drq 1,0: essmatch failed
/bsd: joy0 at isapnp0 "ESS ES1869 Plug and Play AudioD, ESS0001, , "
port 0x201/1
/bsd: biomask 4c40 netmask 4c40 ttymask 5cc2
/bsd: pctr: 586-class performance counters and user-level cycle counter
enabled
/bsd: dkcsum: wd0 matched BIOS disk 80
/bsd: root on wd0a
/bsd: rootdev=0x0 rrootdev=0x300 rawdev=0x302
/bsd: xl0 at cardbus1 dev 0 function 0 "3Com Corporation, 3CCFE575CT,
LAN Cardbus Card": 3Com 3c575C-TX Ethernet: irq 11 address
00:04:75:9c:bb:3c
/bsd: ukphy0 at xl0 phy 0: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface
/bsd: ukphy0: OUI 0x00c000, model 0x0000, rev. 0
savecore: no core dump

[Dell Inspiron 3800 -- does not include log of "watchdog timeout"
messages, just provides the machine information]
/bsd: OpenBSD 3.5 (GENERIC) #34: Mon Mar 29 12:24:55 MST 2004
/bsd:    
deraadt_(_at_)_i386_(_dot_)_openbsd_(_dot_)_org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
/bsd: cpu0: Intel Pentium III ("GenuineIntel" 686-class) 598 MHz
/bsd: cpu0:
FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXSR,SSE
/bsd: real mem  = 133652480 (130520K)
/bsd: avail mem = 117751808 (114992K)
/bsd: using 1657 buffers containing 6787072 bytes (6628K) of memory
/bsd: mainbus0 (root)
/bsd: bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+(00) BIOS, date 03/05/03, BIOS32 rev. 0
@ 0xffe90
/bsd: apm0 at bios0: Power Management spec V1.2
/bsd: apm0: AC on, battery charge unknown
/bsd: pcibios0 at bios0: rev. 2.1 @ 0xf0000/0x10000
/bsd: pcibios0: PCI IRQ Routing Table rev. 1.0 @ 0xfbd20/128 (6
entries)
/bsd: pcibios0: PCI Interrupt Router at 000:07:0 ("Intel 82371 ISA and
IDE" rev 0x00)
/bsd: pcibios0: PCI bus #3 is the last bus
/bsd: bios0: ROM list: 0xc0000/0x10000
/bsd: pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (no bios)
/bsd: pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 "Intel 82443BX AGP" rev 0x03
/bsd: ppb0 at pci0 dev 1 function 0 "Intel 82443BX AGP" rev 0x03
/bsd: pci1 at ppb0 bus 1
/bsd: vga1 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 "ATI Mobility 1" rev 0x64
/bsd: wsdisplay0 at vga1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
/bsd: wsdisplay0: screen 1-5 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
/bsd: cbb0 at pci0 dev 3 function 0 "Texas Instruments PCI1225 CardBus"
rev 0x01: irq 11
/bsd: cbb1 at pci0 dev 3 function 1 "Texas Instruments PCI1225 CardBus"
rev 0x01: irq 11
/bsd: pcib0 at pci0 dev 7 function 0 "Intel 82371AB PIIX4 ISA" rev 0x02
/bsd: pciide0 at pci0 dev 7 function 1 "Intel 82371AB IDE" rev 0x01:
DMA, channel 0 wired to compatibility, channel 1 wired to compatibility
/bsd: wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <FUJITSU MHT2040AH>
/bsd: wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 38154MB, 78140160 sectors
/bsd: wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2
/bsd: atapiscsi0 at pciide0 channel 1 drive 0
/bsd: scsibus0 at atapiscsi0: 2 targets
/bsd: cd0 at scsibus0 targ 0 lun 0: <TOSHIBA, CD-ROM XM-1902B, 1A15>
SCSI0 5/cdrom removable
/bsd: cd0(pciide0:1:0): using PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2
/bsd: uhci0 at pci0 dev 7 function 2 "Intel 82371AB USB" rev 0x01: irq
11
/bsd: usb0 at uhci0: USB revision 1.0
/bsd: uhub0 at usb0
/bsd: uhub0: Intel UHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1
/bsd: uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
/bsd: "Intel 82371AB Power Mgmt" rev 0x03 at pci0 dev 7 function 3 not
configured
/bsd: esa0 at pci0 dev 8 function 0 "ESS Maestro 3" rev 0x10: irq 5
/bsd: ac97: codec id 0x83847609 (SigmaTel STAC9721/23)
/bsd: ac97: codec features 18 bit DAC, 18 bit ADC, SigmaTel 3D
/bsd: audio0 at esa0
/bsd: "ESS ES1983 Modem" rev 0x10 at pci0 dev 8 function 1 not
configured
/bsd: cardslot0 at cbb0 slot 0 flags 0
/bsd: cardbus0 at cardslot0: bus 2 device 0 cacheline 0x8, lattimer
0x20
/bsd: pcmcia0 at cardslot0
/bsd: stray interrupt 7
/bsd: cardslot1 at cbb1 slot 1 flags 0
/bsd: cardbus1 at cardslot1: bus 3 device 0 cacheline 0x8, lattimer
0x20
/bsd: pcmcia1 at cardslot1
/bsd: isa0 at pcib0
/bsd: isadma0 at isa0
/bsd: pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60/5
/bsd: pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
/bsd: pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
/bsd: wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0
/bsd: pms0 at pckbc0 (aux slot)
/bsd: pckbc0: using irq 12 for aux slot
/bsd: wsmouse0 at pms0 mux 0
/bsd: pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
/bsd: midi0 at pcppi0: <PC speaker>
/bsd: sysbeep0 at pcppi0
/bsd: lpt0 at isa0 port 0x378/4 irq 7
/bsd: npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0/16: using exception 16
/bsd: pccom0 at isa0 port 0x3f8/8 irq 4: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
/bsd: fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0/6 irq 6 drq 2
/bsd: biomask c840 netmask c840 ttymask d8c2
/bsd: pctr: 686-class user-level performance counters enabled
/bsd: mtrr: Pentium Pro MTRR support
/bsd: dkcsum: wd0 matched BIOS disk 80
/bsd: root on wd0a
/bsd: rootdev=0x0 rrootdev=0x300 rawdev=0x302
/bsd: xl0 at cardbus0 dev 0 function 0 "3Com Corporation, 3CCFE575CT,
LAN Cardbus Card": 3Com 3c575C-TX Ethernet: irq 11 address
00:04:75:98:b1:69
/bsd: ukphy0 at xl0 phy 0: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface
/bsd: ukphy0: OUI 0x00c000, model 0x0000, rev. 0
savecore: no core dump


	
		
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