[olug] eth0 again

[Jeff Hinrichs]

Here! Here!

Dave is totally on.  I've been around computers for quite a while and have
seen some strange things.  I won't go in to detail but he is totally
correct.  Sometimes the tolerance ranges grow apart on older equipment.
Save yourself and get a different card.  I realize that throwing money at a
problem is not a true solution but for times like these.....  Ever spend
time copying something on a floppy, moving to another machine putting the
floppy in and you get IO errors ???  Ooooh that chaps my hide.  Something
worth a nickel just cost me 5-10 minutes of my life.  5-10 minutes that
you'll never get back.  How many hours have you put in to that NIC?

I've had good luck with Linksys NICs.  Make sure that you get the "version
2.0" types. (it'll say it right on the box)  the earlier versions did have a
tulip driver issue.   (I've got PCI, PCMCIA an cardbus models all in
production right now) Running on various OSs.  RH, Mandrake, Be, 2k, nt, 98
and 95.

-Jeff



----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Burchell" <burchell at inetnebr.com>
To: <olug at bstc.net>
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 1:09 AM
Subject: Re: [olug] eth0 again


> On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 07:05:53PM -0500, Tom wrote:
> > Ok a couple days back I asked about this and got a bunch of responses I
> > have tried everything even moved card but nada.
>
> > Here is what I have and what I get.  It is a EtherEZ SMC-8416T ISA
> > card.  The how to says yes it is supported as SMC-ULTRA and they
> > recommend disabling the PNP in bios for that IRQ.  So I booted in the
> > dos mode and ran the SMC utility to get the I/O and irq and made
> > appropriate changes.  I rebooted and it said getting etho delaying init
> > of eth0 then fails.
>
> > I added the info to the modules.conf and restarted same thing I went in
> > and added it with netconfig now system locks up on boot.  It does not
> > delay eth0 but just stops there.  I pulled out the sound card and modem
> > on the chance it was a conflict that I was not seeing as when I changed
> > it one time the sound card crashed too.  Oh well ANY ideas or where
> > would be a good place to start over from.  How can I get by where it
> > stops on boot other than reloading linux (which I am getting tired of
> > doing).
>
> > Thanks Tom
>
> Have you tested this particular card in another computer and found it
> to work?  If not, do so.  If so, read on.
>
> I don't think I have any advice to actually solve your problem, but
> perhaps I can make you feel better about failure.
>
> We think of computers as working with ones and zeros, on or off, yes or
> no, true or false.  There is no middle ground there; no fuzziness.
> Computer science doesn't contain margins of error.  But _computers_
> do.  Computers, the computers we build and use today, are about
> electrical engineering.  You could become a computer science immortal
> without ever touching an electrical computer (Babbage did, for
> example).  You could design computer components without ever
> understanding the fundamentals of computer science.  The two are not
> the same thing.
>
> Unfortunately, sometimes we forget that our desktop boxes are not
> Turing machines, running endlessly and flawlessly according to the laws
> of pure logic and mathematics.  Our computers are an interconnected
> array of capacitors, transistors, resistors, circuit boards, and (of
> course) ICs.  These components heat up and cool down.  They sometimes
> function at the outer edge of their design specs -- even at the time of
> manufacture.  Plus they fail with time or use, sometimes spectacularly,
> sometimes subtly.  Your motherboard and your Ethernet card were built
> by different people with different design philosophies.  Of course,
> they both built to a common interface specification, which is why the
> vast majority of PC components interoperate so well.  But sometimes
> designers and manufacturers miss the mark.  One is a little low on some
> spec; the other a little high.  Almost never are they off spec enough
> for there to be a problem.  But once in a while, two small mistakes
> multiply into a big one, and two components, which _should_ work just
> fine, and do in other environments, just don't want to work together.
>
> When Turing built his theoretical computer in his head he never had a
> component failure.  But Babbage had a devil of a time getting all the
> brass gears to work together as designed.  And, from time to time, so
> do we all.
>
> I'd be happy to mail you a spare ISA card I have that was rumored to
> have worked once.
>
> --
> Dave Burchell                                          40.49'N, 96.41'W
> Free your mind and your software will follow.              402-467-1619
> http://incolor.inetnebr.com/burchell/                  burchell at acm.org
>
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