[ale] IRQ 255 and IRQ 0 (was: RH 8.0 won't recognize my NIC)

[Cameron Childress]

I'm still having problems getting my NIC cards configured...  After
tinkering with them for several more hours I broke down and bought a Linksys
router to use instead, but I still want to get this working both as an
educational exercise, and just to prove that this old Packard Bell POS
hasn't won the battle.

When I last posted, I'd found dmesg reporting the IRQ of eth0 as 0.  That's
not right!  I've tried setting it in /etc/modules.conf, but that doesn't
seem to be helping either.  Last night I found something else odd - I booted
the machine to dos using a floppy and ran the diag utility that came with
the NIC.  It reports the IRQ as 255 (another invalid #).  I moved the card
around to every slot, and also put the second card in.  Under every
combination I tried, IRQ was 255.  Though it did apparently correctly ID the
slot they were in, and the IO address, etc...

So here's my question...  Where in the system are IRQ addresses assigned in
plug in play hardware?  Is the motherboard expected to decide?  The OS?  The
device driver?  There are no dip switches on the card itself...  I'm
thinking that Packard Bell had some weird proprietary setup that's causing a
problem here, but I don't know enough to say for sure...

Thanks!

-Cameron

-----------------
Cameron Childress
Sumo Consulting Inc.
---
cell:  678-637-5072
aim:   cameroncf
email: cameronc at mindspring.com



> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-admin at ale.org [mailto:ale-admin at ale.org]On Behalf Of Cameron
> Childress
> Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 7:42 AM
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: RE: [ale] RH 8.0 won't recognize my NIC
>
>
> > Is there any output in the logs referencing the devices?
>
> I got an offlist message to a similar effect, and this is what I
> replied...
>
> Ohhh...  yeah - it's something about the irq settings I think.  After
> running dmesg, I found the following lines useful:
>
> ohci1394: pci_module_init failed
> PCI: no IRQ known for inturrupt pin A of device 00:0b.0. Please try using
> pci=bioirq
> divert: allocating divert_blk for eth0
> eth0: NatSemi DP8381[56] at 0xc384d000 00:09:5b:09:1c:9b, IRQ 0
>
> Looks like it's picked up a valid IO, and the MAC addy, but can't
> assign it
> an irq for some reason.  Unfortunately, I am still not aware of how to fix
> the situation.  The bios in this machine is old as poo - wonder
> if that has
> anything to do with it?
>
> I also ran modprobe, though I have a feeling I don't yet understand the
> commands, because it just paused and returned nothing.  I did,
> however, run
> lsmod, and natsemi is listed as a loaded module.
>
> Got any additional pearls of wisdom?
>
> -Cameron
>
> -----------------
> Cameron Childress
> Sumo Consulting Inc.
> ---
> cell:  678-637-5072
> aim:   cameroncf
> email: cameronc at mindspring.com
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ale-admin at ale.org [mailto:ale-admin at ale.org]On Behalf Of Geoffrey
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 7:29 AM
> > To: ale at ale.org
> > Subject: Re: [ale] RH 8.0 won't recognize my NIC
> >
> >
> > Cameron Childress wrote:
> > > Yeah, that's the thing - I bought them today, so they are
> brand spanking
> > > new.  Came with Drivers for RH 6 and 7, but not 8.  The natsemi
> > mod should
> > > work though.  Any other ideas?
> >
> > Is there any output in the logs referencing the devices?
> >
> > --
> > Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at 3times25.net
> >
> > The latest, most widespread virus?  Microsoft end user agreement.
> > Think about it...
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >
>
>
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>


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